The time has come to save Nelson Mandela Bay from Executive Mayor, Cllr Mongameli Bobani, the man who has single-handedly run this City into the ground.
Tomorrow, Thursday 17 October 2019, during a special council meeting of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, Council will vote on a DA tabled no-confidence motion in Cllr Bobani.
The EFF and United Front (UF) have made it clear that they don’t care for the residents of NMB or the proper handling of the affairs of the city and will not be supporting the no confidence motion to protect their interests.
The UF has taken this stance because a criminal blood pact exists between Mayor Bobani and one of the Metro’s most recent acting City Managers and high-ranking UF member, Mvuleni Mapu.
Mapu last week stood in for current acting City Manager, Nobuntu Mpongwana, who was placed on sick leave. Both are allegedly linked with the Mayor in a Hawks investigation regarding allegations of corruption, fraud and money laundering in the municipality’s integrated public transport system (IPTS) and housing development corruption.
Mapu and Mpongwana were both irregularly and unlawfully appointed by the Mayor as neither have the required qualifications to be appointed as a City Manager.
The City is in financial ruin, little more than a year after the DA, ACDP and Cope coalition was ousted.
Within 24 months under the DA-led coalition the City was financially liquid with over R2-billion in the bank and received a AAA credit rating.
In the financial year 2017/2018 the DA Coalition achieved the following spending:
- EPWP – 100%
- Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG) – 100%
- Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) – 95%
- Integrated City Development Grant (ICDG) – 100%
- LGSETA Learning Programmes – R4.85=million spent
- Overall Capital Budget spent – 90%
This level of spending led to additional windfall funding, to the tune of R173 million and R200 million being received from National Treasury.
As per a National Treasury report Nelson Mandela Bay tied with the City of Cape Town as the Metro in the Best Financial Health during the 2017/2018 financial year.
Spending during the 2018/2019 financial year, under the reign of Mayor Bobani and the UDM coalition government reads like a horror story:
- EPWP – 83% (R1.1 million unspent)
- USDG – 89% (R100 million unspent)
- IPTS – 86% (R30 million unspent)
- ICDG – 73% (R3 million unspent)
- LGSETA Learning Programmes – R2.7 million spent (R2.74 million unspent)
- Overall Capital Budget spent – 76% (R500 million unspent)
National Treasury has warned that no roll-over of grant funding to the Metro will be approved unless there is a permanently-appointed chief financial officer. As a result, the metro stands to lose about R500 million in roll-over grant funding and about R3 billion in new grant funding.
The IPTS is crucial to the people of NMB and the DA-led coalition was able to operationalise this. Under the current coalition government, the IPTS is on the brink of collapse due unlawful actions and political meddling.
The City is dirty as refuse is not being collected on a regular basis and illegal dumping is a massive problem.
Under the DA-led coalition government we won environmental prizes in 2017 and 2018 for our efforts at cleaning up the city.
Alleged corruption pertaining to the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s R21 million drain cleaning project debacle also caused the deaths of as many as 20 people.
Mayor Bobani also made the City administratively ungovernable as it has seen at least eight acting City Managers during his tenure. Added to this many acting executive directors were also appointed unlawfully and irregularly and all suspended officials, regardless of guilt, were brought back.
The DA will not rest until sanity prevails and Cllr Bobani is removed as NMB Mayor.