A Metro in Freefall: The Systematic Unraveling of Nelson Mandela Bay

There is a quiet, systemic collapse happening in one of South Africa’s major metros, and it’s unfolding in plain sight. Nelson Mandela Bay, the municipality encompassing the city of Gqeberha, is buckling under the weight of profound governance failure, leaving residents grappling with disintegrating services and soaring crime.

According to Retief Odendaal, the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate and a former mayor himself, the metro is a case study in how political instability directly fuels administrative and social decay.

A Carousel of Chaos at the Top

The root of the crisis, Odendaal argues, is a complete lack of stable leadership. Since 2009, the metro has churned through an almost unbelievable 12 mayors and 48 municipal managers.

“That is what you get when you have a new boss in your institution every four months,” Odendaal told Biznews. “There’s accountability to no one.” He suggests this revolving door is not accidental but a deliberate environment of chaos that facilitates corruption and looting.

The financial toll is staggering. Over the last two decades, the city has accumulated approximately R28 billion in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditurethe highest ratio of any major city.

The Tangible Impact: Darkness, Dirt, and Dry Taps

This financial hemorrhage has a direct, brutal impact on the ground. The consequences are visible on every corner:

• Infrastructure Decay: More than 10,000 streetlights are dark. Thousands of potholes scar the roads, with no tender even in place to purchase tar for repairs.

• Unreliable Utilities: Residents endure frequent, localised power outages and persistent water interruptions due to failing infrastructure.

• Sewage Crisis: Raw sewage flows onto beaches and public parks, a nauseating testament to the collapse of wastewater treatment systems.

• Brain Drain: Critical skills have fled. Seven of ten executive director positions have been vacant for two years, and the city manager has been suspended on full payR250,000 a monthfor two years while facing criminal charges.

A Police Force on its Knees

As services fail, crime has exploded. Once considered a relatively safe city, Nelson Mandela Bay now has police stations recording some of the country’s worst statistics for murder and rape.

The police force is fighting this war with one hand tied behind its back. The Flying Squad, a critical rapid-response unit, has just one vehicle to serve a population of 1.4 million people. A once-sophisticated R300 million CCTV network, vital for real-time crime fighting, has been vandalized beyond repair. The city has even stopped the subscription for ShotSpotter technology, which alerted police to gunfire, leaving communities more vulnerable.

Ian Cameron, the DA’s deputy police spokesperson, confirms the dire state: “The Flying Squad is on the brink of collapse, and the Anti-Gang and K9 Units are struggling to operate under extreme resource constraints.”

Despite directives from Parliament for the SAPS to intervene, there is little evidence of improvement. The story of Nelson Mandela Bay is a stark warning of how quickly a city can fall when accountability vanishes and governance is sacrificed at the altar of political opportunism. For its residents, the collapse isn’t a political soundbiteit’s the reality of a dark street, a burst pipe, and the sound of a gunshot that no one is coming to investigate.

{Source: BusinessTech}

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