More than 4,000 RDP houses, 285 kilometres of newly tarred roads, the electrification of every informal household in Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB), or 1,000 new play parks across the city.
These statistics represent the tangible costs to residents of the billion-rand infrastructure grant funding losses the city has suffered under the current ANC/EFF coalition of corruption government over the past two financial years. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that conservatively estimated, that R1 billion investment would have equated to 3,000 jobs.
While other municipalities blame a lack of funding for their rapidly deteriorating and failing infrastructure, NMB has a far more unique problem. The brain drain that the municipality has experienced over the last couple of years has now led to a situation where there are just not enough competent and experienced senior officials to do the work.
The majority of the top management positions in our departments are vacant. With seven Executive Director positions in the metro empty, departments are rudderless and have become totally dysfunctional. Proper project management within these departments are almost non-existent and the administration is staggering under the lack of qualified staff and engineers to oversee the implementation of critical infrastructure projects.
The DA suggest the following interventions:
- Executive Director positions must be filled.
- Key vacancies for engineers in Infrastructure Engineering and Electricity and Energy have to be filled.
- Specialist external advisers must be included in the Bid Specification and Bid Evaluation Committees.
- Supply Chain must be completely overhauled and benchmarked with other functioning administrations.
- The Budget Monitoring Committee must convene regularly and include specialist external advisors.
The city can expect even more infrastructure grant funding losses in the current financial year (2025/26) as the municipality is unable to get major infrastructure projects on track. As at the end of the first quarter for the financial year (30 September), the total spent of the approved consolidated capital budget stood at 5.90%.
A broken supply chain with inexperienced staff as well as bid committee members that do not possess the necessary skills to take decisions have further worsened the situation. Adding even more fuel to the fire is the fact that the instability in Council effectively means little to no oversight by politicians.
If we don’t stop the city haemorrhaging capital grant funding meant to improve and upgrade our road, electricity, sanitation and water networks, we will never be able to attract more investment to grow our economy.
The current ANC/EFF coalition has proven that it does not have the vision nor skills to fix the city. That is why a new DA government under the leadership of Mayoral Candidate Retief Odendaal will get NMB working again.