Province moves to dissolve Nelson Mandela Bay ‘looting network’

The Eastern Cape government is waiting  to start the process of having the Nelson Mandela Bay council dissolved.

Co-operative governance MEC Xolile Nqatha said the metro was in a crisis and Bhisho had no choice but to intervene in the “looting network” in the Bay.

He held a meeting with the ANC’s Bay caucus as well as members of the party’s regional task team on Tuesday, where he laid out the plan to rescue the city’s administration.

In an interview after the meeting, Nqatha said he had come to the city to explain the implications of the political crisis “which has gravitated to a full-blown governance collapse”.

“As the provincial government, we’ve got an obligation to invoke provisions of the constitution under these circumstances,” he said.

Nqatha said several Section 139(A) notices had been sent to the municipality by his office to inform it of what it was failing to do and what it should do to get back onto the right path.

The National Treasury had also sent several letters to the city in which it raised  matters of concern, he said.

With regard to the latest notice from the National Treasury a week ago, in which the Treasury  gave the municipality two weeks to prepare itself to repay the money it had received for the Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS) since inception, Nqatha said if the municipality failed to give a coherent response by October 30, it would leave the provincial government with no choice but to dissolve the council.

“The submission of the dissolution of the institution would be the last notice, failing which dissolution must be implemented.

“The law prescribes that the minister of finance [and] the NCOP [National Council of Provinces] must be notified.

“The NCOP will have to look at the report and decide if it will approve the intervention because [afterwards] they will come and do an assessment [to decide] whether the intervention is an appropriate one,” Nqatha said.

In August, Bhisho’s co-operative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) portfolio committee recommended that the  provincial government should send a support team or take over some of the administrative functions of the city.

The Cogta committee wrote: “There is collapse of governance and functionality at [the] Nelson Mandela [Bay] metro and the council cannot fulfil its executive obligation in terms of the constitution or local government legislation.”

It  recommended that: “The department [of Cogta] must invoke section 154(1) of the constitution [and] if all else fails, invoke section 139(1) (b), and a comprehensive report on the status of the two metros must be submitted to the committee within 30 days of adoption of this report.”

Section 154 refers to sending a support team to the municipality to assist with the running of the administration.

Section 139 (1)(b) is a lot trickier as it refers to performing some of the functions of the municipality.

The dissolution of the council falls under Section 139(1) (c), which — if imposed — would lead to an election rerun and the formation of a new council.

The Bay council has failed to convene meetings since July, with the last scheduled meeting  cancelled by council speaker Buyelwa Mafaya due to an alleged security threat.

The municipality has also had several acting city managers over the past year, the latest being a deputy director of legal services, Nobuntu Mpongwana, and an acting CFO — Karel Kramer — who was parachuted three tiers up from chief accountant.

Nqatha said there were those who thrived on the chaos in the city and were benefiting from it.

“There are people who do not want us to come in because any intervention will disrupt the looting network there.

“As it is now, this [current] arrangement is only serving some in the elite,” he said.

ANC councillors who attended the meeting with Nqatha at Florence Matomela House in Port Elizabeth described it as heated, with some appealing to  Nqatha to hold off on any interventions.

One councillor said Nqatha spoke about the unanswered letters sent to the municipality by his office and the National Treasury.

“In June, he wrote and asked why we didn’t pass the budget, no response.

“The National Treasury wrote inquiring why its recommendations were not implemented regarding the IPTS report, and no [proper] response.

“Nqatha said that, by law, he should implement the process of dissolution because once a Section 139 process had begun it had to be seen through unless there was improvement. And there is no improvement”.

Another councillor said the problem councillors had with the threat to dissolve the council was that they had debt and this would see them out of jobs.

“We asked that instead of a Section 139 (1)(c) intervention,  provincial government institute Section 139 (1)(b), where councillors at least get to keep their jobs.

“Nqatha said he wanted to see this in writing,” the councillor said.

A third councillor claimed Nqatha said this was not a democracy and that a decision to dissolve the council had already been taken.

Commenting on the proposal by the ANC councillors, Nqatha said the council would be given an opportunity to demonstrate why it should not be dissolved.

“Given that there is no winner there in terms of political parties — [and] the divisions within the political parties themselves — it’s  pie in the sky to think that they will find solutions.

“In the context of co-operative governance, we cannot just come in — council has got to take a resolution to ask for assistance, but the point is they have been sitting with this crisis,” Nqatha said.

Meanwhile, Bay mayor Mongameli Bobani said the last time Nqatha was here, in June, he had promised that any concerns would be addressed through the inter-government relations committee.

“The MEC knows the channels to follow,” Bobani said.

“Before a council can be dissolved, there are certain procedures that need to be followed before making any decisions.

“This municipality is still functioning, services are being delivered to the people, salaries are being paid, refuse is being collected and water and sanitation is being provided in shacks.”