Bankruptcy stalks Nelson Mandela Bay
The financial mess in Nelson Mandela Bay means the DA and its partners must take the chance of being labelled antipoor, or see the metropole’s monetary affairs worsen even further
A frank and frightening report on the financial status of the Nelson Mandela Bay metropole has been disregarded because the special council meeting called to discuss it on January 27 was postponed because of squabbling. DA executive mayor Athol Trollip and his UDM deputy, Mongameli Bobani, fell out over city manager Johann Mettler. After all opposition parties walked out, no quorum was possible and the meeting was postponed. This, more than the report, seems to have made headlines. The report, tabled by Mettler, uses brutally honest language to outline the money problems facing the metropole. Nelson Mandela Bay was won by a DA-led coalition, unseating the ANC, in the 2016 local government elections. Remarkably, the report garnered little attention, perhaps because the meeting devolved into disorder. But the report is critical. It paints a devastating picture of the state of the metropole’s finances and, in the nature of the problem it describes, exposes a time bomb that is going to ...
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