After seven hours of delays, caucuses and political bickering, the Nelson Mandela Bay council ended an anticipated meeting with motions of no confidence against mayor Babalwa Lobishe and deputy mayor Gary van Niekerk being shelved amid claims of ANC intervention.
Thursday marked council’s return to the Woolboard Exchange Building, a venue synonymous with political drama, for the first time in two years after it had been damaged by flooding and vandalism.
Lengthy tea and lunch breaks, coupled with repeated caucuses, turned what should have been a day of business into a stop-start affair.
Hours passed with little progress as party leaders disappeared behind closed doors.
ANC insiders said it was during one of the caucuses that the party’s regional headquarters instructed councillors to bury the motion against Van Niekerk.
It was withdrawn and the one against Lobishe was deferred to the next meeting.
ANC insiders claimed Luthuli House had instructed the party to withdraw the motion against Van Niekerk after it became concerned that support for Lobishe could not be guaranteed.
The ANC would lose backing from the National Alliance, with Van Niekerk as president, if they supported his removal.
The insiders also claimed some of their councillors, many of whom were not expected to return after the November 4 local government elections, were prepared to back the motion to remove the mayor despite the party’s position because they had nothing to lose.
“We had a call with the SG [secretary-general Fikile Mbalula] about this motion and he’s telling us to scrap it,” one insider said.
“So we’re going to let it go because if we do, the motion against the mayor won’t be able to succeed.”
Another insider said: “People are angry, and as you’ve seen, not all of our members are present today.
“People have submitted apologies and you can’t trust those who’ve logged in virtually because when it comes to voting they may not respond to the call for counting.”
During the meeting, speaker Eugene Johnson announced that GOOD councillor Lawrence Troon, who had submitted the motion against Lobishe, had received tragic news of a death in the family and requested that the matter stand over until the next council meeting.
By then, Troon had already left the council chamber.
On the motion against Van Niekerk, Johnson announced she had received a letter from ANC councillor Luyanda Lawu withdrawing it.
Among the key items before council was a report on the city’s unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure (UIFWE), which stated that R7.8bn had been processed.
However, ACDP councillor Lance Grootboom and the DA’s Gert Engelbrecht pointed out that the city’s municipal public accounts committee had never dealt with this money, questioning acting city manager Lonwabo Ngoqo as to where the figure had come from.
Councillors also debated the city’s potential loss of a projected R1.9bn revenue stream after renewable energy developer Hive Hydrogen sought permission to bypass the municipality and connect directly with Eskom.
Councillors warned the metro could not afford to forfeit such a significant source of income.
Hive Hydrogen is developing a massive R105bn green ammonia project at the Coega Special Economic Zone.
Tabling the report, Lobishe said Hive Hydrogen had asked the municipality for a no-objection letter after deciding not to proceed with its electricity connection agreement with the city.
She said the company had argued an investment of its magnitude should instead be facilitated by the national government.
“Hive say they no longer want to be connected with the municipality but with Eskom because they think nowhere in the world has any investment of this magnitude been accommodated by a municipality but by a national government.
“We sat meetings to try and convince them.”
Lobishe said the municipality had been preparing its electricity infrastructure to attract investment and make it easier for new developments to connect to the grid.
“Council should be aware that we’re pulling out of the agreement based on the request by Hive,” Lobishe said.
“Secondly, we’ll give them our letter of no objection.”
DA councillor Ondela Kepe said his primary concern was that the electricity and energy department had an annual deficit of R1.5bn.
“We cannot afford to let go of any revenue streams in that directorate,” Kepe said.
“We fought for too long in closing gaps to see how we can best benefit the residents of the city.
“The piece of land the project will be done on is in our jurisdiction as a city.
“We’ve made preparations to receive and participate in this project, including a licence to operate a 400kV feed.
“It would be complete suicide to let go of an opportunity to bring in R1.9bn in the city.”
Kepe said it made no sense as to why that should be considered.
“Let’s not squander opportunities to get revenue that will benefit the city.
“Ours is to reject what the mayor’s saying.
“We cannot issue that no-objection letter.”
Grootboom said losing Hive Hydrogen’s electricity connection with the city would be a huge loss as the city was looking forward to the project in terms of green energy.
“We would’ve been the only city in the country to have this kind of system.”
EFF councillor Siya Mosi said the city should not allow Hive Hydrogen a pass.
“They came to us and we never went to them,” Mosi said.
“Let them wait and we engage with Eskom.”
Council resolved to obtain a legal opinion on the way forward.
Meanwhile, the DA is heading back to court in a bid to hold Lobishe personally liable for any losses linked to the controversial transformer leasing deal.
During a media briefing outside City Hall, DA provincial leader Andrew Whitfield announced the party would not back another motion of no confidence against Lobishe.
Whitfield said over the past decade, council had witnessed more than 20 motions of no confidence.
He said the internal fighting among coalition partners had punished the people of the city while political parties and politicians fought for themselves and for positions.
“The DA has this year taken a deliberate strategy to pursue several matters through the court.
“You will have noticed earlier this week that we won a huge court victory.
“But before we took on that matter, we had begun briefing attorneys on another matter.
“The biggest fights that we can win for the people of Nelson Mandela Bay will be in court.
“Fighting in court for the people of Nelson Mandela Bay hurts those in power and helps the people of the city and demonstrates our seriousness to tackle injustice and unfairness, specifically in the application of the electricity tariffs.
“We will be tackling corruption in the transformer leasing scandal, and we have engaged our attorneys to bring an application to join the review proceedings on this matter in court and to ask the court ultimately to order the municipality to institute recovery proceedings in terms of the MFMA against mayor Lobishe in her personal capacity.”
In March, Lobishe appeared before parliament’s co-operative governance and traditional affairs committee to answer to allegations over her role in leasing a R25m municipally owned transformer to Coega Steels without council approval.
At the meeting, she conceded the decision was irregular.
Earlier this year, the municipality had also approached the court to review the decision to lease the transformer following a council resolution.
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