Rolling water and electricity outages. Dangerous, pothole-ridden streets with no traffic lights. Broken streetlights and massive billing mistakes. Basic service delivery in Nelson Mandela Bay is collapsing.
And nowhere is this collapse clearer than in the statutory mid-term report, which reveals that in the first six months of the 2025/26 financial year the municipality managed to achieve a woeful 16.67% of its basic service delivery targets.
The city’s overall performance against all targets stands at 34.15%, compared to 51.28% in the mid-year report for the 2024/25 financial year.
Following extended water and electricity outages that paralysed almost half the metro this week, the report paints a bleak picture of a municipality in a state of collapse.
Maintenance and repair budgets are once again underspent, at only 29.78%, while infrastructure across the metro is collapsing and in dire need of rehabilitation and refurbishment. The total capital expenditure on major infrastructure development works, like roads, electricity and water, is also standing at a woefully underspent 27.02%.
Equally concerning is the municipality’s financial sustainability performance, with the metro administration meeting only 33.33% of its targets. This comes as little surprise. Halfway through the financial year, the metro has already recorded electricity losses of R840 million, while non-revenue water stands at a staggering 60.39% amidst an unfolding water crisis, clearly paving the way for record electricity and water losses for the current financial year.
Overdue debt has increased by R3.2 billion, while cash reserves have reduced by R318 million – a clear sign that the metro is losing fiscal control.
The metro also deliberately tried to hide its dismal performance from the public and, for the first time in more than a decade, deliberately excluded a summary of the municipality’s performance in respect of its targets. The summary was fortunately submitted to National Treasury, and the DA managed to obtain a copy of the document.
It is clear the ANC/EFF coalition government has no interest in serving the people of Nelson Mandela Bay. Our municipality has been hijacked by political thugs who only serve to enrich themselves at everyone else’s expense.
This year we have the opportunity to vote for a DA majority government with Retief Odendaal as Mayor, who will put a stop to corruption and self-serving politicians. The choice is clear: more of the same failure or wholesale changes that will get Nelson Mandela Bay working again.