With just months to go before the November 4 local government elections, frustration over failing service delivery is boiling over across Nelson Mandela Bay, where residents say almost every aspect of daily life is deteriorating.
From pothole-ridden roads and sewage spills to water and power outages, broken street lights and growing safety concerns, anger is growing in communities.
As political parties prepare for a bruising election battle, analysts warn that worsening living conditions and collapsing public confidence could shape voter turnout and dramatically influence the outcome.
Across the city, roads are crumbling, sewage spills snake through streets, and street lights are broken.
Residents from Kariega to Gqeberha described neighbourhoods that looked like war zones.
The sense across large parts of the metro is that service delivery has shifted from unreliable to outright collapse.
Standing beside a sewage spill outside his home opposite CW Hendricks Primary School on Kamesh Road in Rosedale, Kariega, as a child played metres away in the contaminated water, Burton Johnson, 45, said the municipality was failing residents.
“Service delivery from the municipality is very bad,” Johnson said.
He said after the recent rain and wind, his home was left without electricity from May 12 to 18, while neighbours still had power.
“That was just after the end of the month. We had bought meat and all that stuff got rotten, so we had to throw it away.”
Johnson blamed politics for worsening service delivery.
“Everyone is after these big projects of the municipality, but there is no service delivery.”
He said greed around tenders had fuelled political distrust.
“Once people are voted into power, they often forget about who put them there.”
In Despatch’s Khayamnandi township, a 70-year-old resident, who asked not to be named, described the city as going through “dark times”.
Illegal dumping surrounds the area, with a neglected sports field vandalised.
Residents fear crime and cable theft.
“This location was never like this,” he said.
“That field looked beautiful. Now there is illegal dumping along the outside wall and inside the facility.”
He said the area was better maintained during apartheid and called for investment in sporting facilities to keep young people away from drugs and crime.
In Missionvale’s Rolihlahla informal settlement, resident Thandisizwe Mandla, 54, said rapid population growth had outpaced infrastructure delivery.
Mandla, who arrived in the settlement in 1999, estimated the number of shacks had grown from about 500 to nearly 1,900.
While roads had been built after community protests in 2018, he said residents still lacked stormwater drainage, along with proper refuse collection and sanitation.
“There are about 15 taps. In the evenings, there are queues for water,” he said.
“We want houses, stormwater drains and a proper park. That is what I will be voting for.”
Across the road, residents living in temporary structures said they felt abandoned.
Julia Xundulu, 40, said about 146 families shared three working taps and a single portable toilet servicing 15 structures each.
“When it rains, the whole temporary structure gets wet,” she said.
“There are no lights, it gets very dark here at night, we get robbed, some of us are being raped.”
Xundulu said her door had once been broken down while she slept with her children.
“We do not feel valued, we feel dumped.”
In Kwazakhele, taxi rank manager Aubrey Ndyova, 79, said broken traffic lights, potholes and water shortages were affecting commuters and the taxi industry.
“With this darkness, sometimes taxis drive past commuters because they do not see them since we are on the roads as early as 5am,” he said.
“There is always a shortage of water, so at times, our taxis are not properly washed.”
In Lapland, Kariega, frustrated resident Sidney Taai, 47, collects murky water from a pothole formed by a leaking drain after months without running water.
“There is a tank that gets refilled with water, but it quickly empties,” Taai said.
“We use this water to do laundry and flush toilets. It has been at least five to six months without water.”
Meanwhile, in Summerstrand, Melisa Sithole, 24, said worsening infrastructure decay and growing numbers of vagrants had left residents feeling unsafe.
“The Kings Beach area used to be beautiful, but now it is just an inverse mirror image of what it used to be,” she said.
“I feel as though whoever I vote for, my vote will be going down the drain because there is no service delivery and there is no accountability.”
Municipal spokesperson Sithembiso Soyaya said refuse collection in Rolihlahla had been escalated to the waste management sub-directorate for assessment and consideration of possible adjustments.
He said the provision of temporary residential structures was a collaboration between the municipality and the provincial government.
“These structures serve as a relief measure for qualifying residents awaiting allocation of formal housing opportunities.
“Funding is provided through allocations from both the national and provincial governments.
“While efforts to accelerate delivery continue, the pace of implementation is dependent on the availability of funding and approved housing programmes.
“It is important to note that the Nelson Mandela Bay metro currently has a housing backlog exceeding 100,000 households.”
He said the city continued to face challenges from vandalism, theft of electrical infrastructure and cable theft.
“To mitigate these challenges, the municipality has implemented several interventions, including the installation of lower-value cabling in identified hotspot areas to reduce the attractiveness of the infrastructure to criminals.”
He said Lapland was affected by water supply disruptions from flooding.
“The interruptions were primarily caused by electricity outages that affected the operation of critical pump stations within the water distribution network.
“The electricity-related challenges have since been resolved, and reservoir levels supplying the affected areas have improved significantly.”
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