By Noxolo Kabane

The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is one of six Metropolitan municipalities in South Africa. This municipality was formed in 2001 as an administrative area that covers the city of Port Elizabeth, the nearby towns of Uitenhage and Despatch, as well as the surrounding rural areas. It is located on the shores of Algoa Bay in the Eastern Cape Province. Port Elizabeth was the first city in SA to establish a fully integrated, democratic local authority and has long been a leader in the political transformation of the country. Nelson Mandela Metro is the strategic hub of commercial and industrial zone in the Eastern Cape. Mayor Wayile reiterates that the Nelson Mandela Bay is the economic hub of the Eastern Cape Province, and the Bay needs to ensure that it plays a leading role in making the right strategic interventions to help the economy continue on a positive growth path.

Reviewing the Past Challenges Faced by the Nelson Mandela Metro

The Nelson Mandela Bay is one of the metros that have been faced by numerous challenges in the recent past. These are attributable to a number of factors.  In 2009, the Municipal Manager was suspended while the seat of the Executive Mayor also changed hands. These changes in the core positions of the municipality resulted in some leadership challenges within the metro. The metro has also experienced a shortage of water. The five dams supplying water to the Nelson Mandela Bay have been at critical capacity levels for extended periods of time in the recent past. Politically, the Metro has been a stronghold region for the ANC. However, with the scandals that the party has had within the municipality and nationally there are concerns that the Party’s fortunes might dip during the forthcoming local government elections. On the flip side of the coin it would be interesting to see how COPE will perform in these elections within the metro seeing that these are the first local government elections that the party will be contesting and a significant majority of COPE supporters are in the metro.

Using the 2009 national elections as a basis for analysis, there is a possibility that Port Elizabeth could be controlled by the opposition in 2011. The loss of the biggest city in the Eastern Cape, the ANC's spiritual and intellectual heartland, will be a further blow to the ANC's prestige. Indications are that there could be a slim possibility that another of South Africa’s six metropolitan municipalities could join Cape Town in being ruled by the DA or a DA-led coalition/alliance. In 2009 the ANC won only 50.1% of the vote in Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay Metro), with the DA and COPE securing 29% and 17% each. Their total of 46% could further be increased by votes that previously went to other parties such as the UDM and ID, and by the ongoing trend of the ANC losing support in mostly urban pockets of its former Eastern Cape stronghold.

The DA leadership has made some comment on the political in-fighting that has been happening within the Metro and the effect that it has on service delivery. Mrs Helen Zille, the DA leader, stated that on her visit to Port Elizabeth she saw first-hand how ANC factionalism destroys the state's ability to deliver. She further said, crime affects us all, and it is a problem in every city. But in Port Elizabeth, the ANC is so riddled with political divisions that the council is not taking any decisive action. As ANC councillors fight each other for positions, the people of Port Elizabeth are fighting a losing battle against criminals. When the Council should have been putting everything it could into establishing a well-trained and dedicated Metro Police, the project has been delayed and deferred because of the ANC's internal battles. As a result, this is now the only Metro in South Africa without a Metro Police service.

The financial crisis that the province finds itself in also appears to be cascading down to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Municipality. The Eastern Cape provincial Departments of Education and Health are projected to overspend by R3 billion in the current financial year. Public representatives who are accountable for the Metro’s well-being should not be kept in the dark. What needs to be clarified is whether or not there is unbudgeted expenditure taking place or whether the problem lies with a lack of revenue collection. The extent to which both these factors are impacting on the cash flow of the Metro needs to be spelled out. When a municipality experiences cash flow problems they tend to go slow on the payments for service providers. This has a crippling effect on businesses and results in job losses and poor service delivery. This is clearly an unacceptable state of affairs.

A financial recovery plan is currently in its draft form, with its principal objective being to place the Municipality on a sound financial position to ensure its ability to meet its service delivery targets. The financial recovery plan will address, among other things, issues of adequate cash management, enhancement of the Municipality’s revenue base and additional revenue streams.

The Major Challenges that have bedevilled the Metro Lately include:

• The cashflow challenge experienced by the Municipality and the resultant budget cuts.
• The protracted length of time it took to settle with the former Municipal Manager.
• The knock-on negative effects of the recent global economic recession.
• The financial crisis experienced by Bayworld.
• The loss of Blue Flag status by two local beaches (Wells Estate and Humewood).
• Need to improve planning between the three spheres of government to ensure the implementation of integrated sustainable human settlements.
• The need to review the Supply Chain Management Policy so as to enhance economic transformation.
• Unsatisfactory progress in youth, women and disability programmes.
• Need to entrench a performance-driven culture amongst all employees.
• Continued poverty, unemployment and social & economic inequality.
• Service delivery backlogs and decaying infrastructure.
• The drop in the matric pass rate.

However, according to Mayor Wayile, these challenges are not overwhelming. The Mayor argues that the Municipality is dealing with its financial challenges and that all options were being explored to find alternate forms of funding for major projects in the Bay.

Intervention Strategies

Indeed, in spite of the challenges listed above, the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro has made notable strides toward achieving its service delivery targets during the 2009/2010 financial year. Although various factors have impacted on the targets being met, Nelson Mandela Bay’s Executive Mayor, Cllr Zanoxolo Wayile, has promised that, by continually pursuing alternative options and lobbying private stakeholder partnerships, the Municipality will strive to improve service delivery to the people. Largely, the Municipality saw a dramatic acceleration in service delivery and infrastructure development during the year 2010. The Mayor remarks, "such successes could only have been achieved with the assistance, contribution and participation of all stakeholders and the public and we are extremely thankful and grateful for all their efforts."

Nelson Mandela Bay has been earmarked for involvement in three ground-breaking renewable energy projects with a combined investment value of more than R1-billion are on track, with at least one to start being implemented before the end of the year, top project officials revealed. These projects include the resumed roll-out of up to 100000 solar water heaters (high-pressure solar-powered geysers) to residents after the R900-million project was put on ice in June, as well as a proposed wind farm at Van Stadens consisting of up to 15 giant wind turbines, and methane gas harvesting facilities at the Arlington or Koedoeskloof waste disposal sites. Because the three projects are being funded by ETA Energy Ltd – a subsidiary of parastatal the Central Energy Fund (CEF) – they are on track and unaffected by the Bay municipality’s cash-flow problems which has seen many infrastructure projects halted. The three projects will see the metro catapulted to the forefront of attempts by cities around the country to minimise their dependence on energy provider Eskom and its steep annual price increases by “going green”.

This year the Municipality looks forward to exciting developments set to take place in the city, namely investments such as PetroSA, the Coega manganese facility, the Njoli Square Redevelopment, and the Madiba Bay Leisure World. These, together with other major developments, such as the Uitenhage and PE inner-city renewal programmes, will collectively change the face of Nelson Mandela Bay.
Among the major consultative gatherings that the Municipality will host this year will be a Job-Creation Summit, through which the city will improve its job-creation potential and spur the local economy, and a Summit on Vulnerable Groups (i.e. youth, women, people with disabilities), in addition to the continuous public participation programmes.

The Nelson Mandela Metro has come up with an intervention campaign to boost the state of education in the region. The establishment of an education task team is aimed at tackling the state of education in the region. The task team is led by multi-party councilors, church leaders, NGO sector representatives, district education department and private sector representatives. The mayor of the metro rightly points out that “government alone cannot succeed in improving education. We need the communities and the private sector to be on board. The communities need to take ownership and pride in the education of their children. They also need to protect the schools against vandalism and theft.”

Conclusion

Although the metro has been seen to experience complex dynamics, all is not lost and residents are looking forward to seeing more being achieved with minimal excuses for shoddy delivery of services. Greater political stability galvanized by a stronger and responsible opposition may be just what is needed for the Metro leadership to get more focused.

References
•    http://www.sabcnews.com/portal/site/SABCNews/menuitem.5c4f8fe7ee929f602ea12ea1674daeb9/?vgnextoid=fceebc1e3145c210VgnVCM10000077d4ea9bRCRD&vgnextfmt=default
•    http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=162929&sn=Detail
•    http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=126593
•    http://www.savingwater.co.za/tag/nelson-mandela-bay/
•    http://news.za.msn.com/article.aspx?cp-documentid=154739269
•    http://www.nelsonmandelabay.gov.za/News.aspx?objID=4&cmd=view&id=1296
•    http://www.eumunicipaloutreach.org.za/newsletters/newsletter-58-new-local-government-report-reveals-challenges-2013-12-february-2010/