Along with their government of local unity (GLU) senior partner the ANC, the EFF can expect to bear the brunt in the November municipal elections from Nelson Mandela Bay voters angered by the collapse of service delivery in the metro.
They are already in a pickle with two national departments making highly critical public statements of the governing coalition’s severe governance and fiscal management failures.
They can’t distance themselves from that.
Their caucus leader Khanya Ngqisha is the MMC for budget and treasury.
He is the mayoral committee member holding the purse strings at a time when the municipality is being lambasted by both national and provincial representatives of the department of co-operative governance plus National Treasury for its mismanagement of public funds.
Deputy minister of Cogta Namane Masemola and MEC Zolile Williams after their last visit said the municipality was on the verge of being placed under administration for, among other reasons, serious fiscal ill-discipline.
I suppose that’s the price to pay when a councillor who has no business or financial management background to speak of is unwisely entrusted with oversight over a R21bn budget.
A situation akin to having a visually impaired driver at the steering wheel.
On Ngqisha’s watch as portfolio head of finance, the municipality has accumulated about R30bn in irregular expenditure, the highest in the country.
Meanwhile the ANC Youth League has unleashed a vicious attack on the EFF’s MMC for electricity and energy, Ziyanda Mnqokoyi, calling her incompetent and blaming her for frequent electricity outages which have seen residents in the townships burning tyres in the streets in protest.
The electricity and energy directorate is currently running at a loss of R1,5bn a year, a situation which threatens the financial stability of the entire municipality.
Calling for Mnqokoyi’s removal from the mayoral committee the youth league posted the following statement on social media: “Nelson Mandela Bay municipality continues to be in the dark because of the incompetent EFF MMC, councillor Ziyanda Mnqokoyi”.
It is unusual for coalition partners to attack each other on public platforms but that is where things are as the wheels come off in the GLU today.
The EFF managed 6% of the vote in the 2021 municipal elections.
After heading up two directorates which are at the forefront of the current service delivery collapse in the metro they will have done well if they get a vote share anywhere near 5% in the November election.
Ntozonke Ndzima, political commentator, New Brighton
