Retief Odendaal: The big battle for the Bay has begun

A big battle has begun to overcome the “coalition chaos and instability that has allowed Nelson Mandela Bay to be hijacked by criminal networks”. In this interview, Retief Odendaal, the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate, tells Chris Steyn that the City has the dubious record of having the most irregular expenditure of any municipality - R28 billion, while 10,000 street lights are not working, not a single engineer is left in the electricity department - and despite being one of only two metros in the country that actually still has some cash reserves, it can't deliver services. Since 2009, the City has had 48 municipal managers and 12 mayors. “If you take the municipal managers, it equates to about one every quarter. People ask me, but why does that happen? And I say, well, it's to facilitate looting because one loots from the State when there is absolute chaos.” Odendaal, urges citizens to give the DA the votes it needs for an outright majority as he outlines the measures needed to turn the Metro around. “…the good news for South Africans, not just in Nelson Mandela Bay, but in every other broken city and municipality in South Africa is that bad governments can be removed, corrupt people can be voted out of office.”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.103)Yet another decaying metro in South Africa is counting on a new mayor to save it from collapse. I go over to Nelson Mandela Bay to speak to Retief Odendaal, the man the Democratic Alliance has chosen to be the next Mayor of the city. Welcome, RetiefRetief Odendaal (00:20.6)Thank you very much for hosting me. It's lovely to be here.Chris Steyn (00:027:8)I take it you have started campaigningRetief Odendaal (00:28.046)Yes, absolutely and it's going to be one of the most intense campaigns that the DA has ever seen in Nelson Mandela Bay and I think there's a lot at stake. We know how important the city is to the economy of the Eastern Cape and we've seen the state of paralysis that the city currently finds itself in and it's really, really sad. Few people know that Nelson Mandela Bay actually is one of the few metros in, well, one of only two metros in the country that actually still has some cash reserves, but notwithstanding the fact that we have cash, we can't deliver services. So yes, there is certainly going to be a battle for Nelson Mandela Bay.Chris Steyn (01:12.273)Now you were mayor for nine months in 2022. Remind us why were you ousted?Retief Odendaal (01:19.96)Well, I think at the time, we had the dubious record of putting together the biggest coalition that was ever put together for local government. It was a 10-party coalition. And if we're going to be very honest with one another, we also realised that it was unlikely to last, but we grabbed the opportunity - and notwithstanding the very complex nature of coalition politics, especially such a large coalition, we managed to make progress.And we can talk about what we achieved in government, amongst others, the fact that the city, for that period of time, received the first unqualified audit opinion in 12 years. And we also managed to get housing delivery moving in the city, RDP housing delivery. The year before we took over, the city managed only to build 28 RDP houses and send about 180 million rand back to the Fiscus. And we managed to finally get housing delivery moving and we delivered about 450 houses, which I still believe is far too little for a metro municipality, but considering the limited resources, we certainly made movement. We also saw that we could start spending our money on key service deliverables, but also fast track our infrastructure projects, which were bleeding at that stage.We were ousted simply because one of our coalition partners decided he wanted to be the mayor and he was offered this position by the PA's Mr. Gayton McKenzie. After we were outsted, unfortunately we saw a rapid decline of the city again. The city again went from an unqualified audit opinion to a qualified audit opinion. And over the last two financial years, the city forfeited nearly a billion rand in grant funding to the national fiscis, unable to spend its money due to the state of paralysis. And we've seen this unstable coalition politics play out in Nelson Mandela Bay since 2016. There has been eight coalition governments since 2016 with no less than eight mayors. And sadly, this instability has led to the...Retief Odendaal (03:46.488)…chaos that we've seen in the municipality and obviously the knock-on effect on service delivery being unable to deliver basic services not to withstanding the fact that it's a R22 billion institution.Chris Steyn (03:59.589)How many mayors has the city had since 2000?Retief Odendaal (04:04.75)The city has had, I'm speaking under correction, has had 12 mayors since 2009, which meant that it had 13 mayors since 2000, yes. I use 2009 as a sort of like the date of reference because since 2009 there's been a lot of instability in Nelson Mandela Bay Council. From that date, we have seen 48 municipal managers and 12 mayors. If you take the municipal managers, it equates to about one every quarter. People ask me, but why does that happen? And I say, well, it's to facilitate looting because one loots from the state when there is absolute chaos. And that is what you get when you have a new boss in your institution every four months. There's accountability to no one. Nobody is being held to account through performance management system. And as such, since we've seen that there has been a progressive collapse of the institution since 2009.Chris Steyn (05:23.311)Now the chairperson of Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police, Ian Cameron, visited Nelson Mandela Bay recently and came back with horror findings on the state of policing in the city.Retief Odendaal (05:38.154)Absolutely. I think that one of the biggest concerns that we have at the moment is, apart from the fact that service delivery has come to a grinding halt because of the state of paralysis and the fact that there are no engineers left and there are no proper administrators that can do the work, we have seen how Nelson Mandela Bay, which used to be a relatively safe city, has seen this absolute explosion of crime over the last couple of years with some of the police stations in Nelson Mandela Bay recording the worst statistics for murder, rape and serious crime. Now we have visited for example the Flying Squad in Nelson Mandela Bay who's got one vehicle to service a metro of about 1.4 million people. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that notwithstanding the fact that there is manpower, there is not the vehicles needed in order to assist men and women in blue to actually have their boots on the ground. And it's one of the complaints that we normally have. We say that there's not enough manpower and that is...very much so at many of our stations, not just here in Nelson Mandela Bay, but across the country. But we often forget that there's also additional resources that are needed, like for example, vehicles. And to have one vehicle at the Flying Squad in a city of 1.4 million just shows how broken SAPS have become. We've listened to horror stories as to how long it takes to be able to get these vehicles fixed when they're in workshop. How long it takes to be able to get the procurement rights so that they can get basic repairs done on some of these vehicles. And it really, really is exacerbating our crime situation in Nelson Mandela Bay. And it really is also one of the biggest concerns of our residents. Apart from the fact that you've got this…Retief Odendaal (07:55.086)As I've said, collapsing services from the municipality, people no longer feel safe. And sadly, our municipality has also not been able to assist in providing them with whatever support they could be supporting them with. One example is the fact that there is no proper CCTV camera system in place. We used to have a Joint Operation Centre with an extensive CCTV camera network that allowed SAPS to in real time see footage of crime happening. Well, all of that has been vandalised and more than 300 million rands worth of CCTV networks have been destroyed. We've also seen how the city previously have introduced technology, early warning technology like ShotSpotter which in real time gave the police a notification of where shots were fired in especially gang-ridden areas…We've just seen the city stopping the subscription, thereby not continuing with it and leaving those communities vulnerable and again, not being able to support SAPS. So what is happening to SAPS, I think is really, really sad. But because we've got a dysfunctional municipality, it's exacerbating the situation.Chris Steyn (09:24.005)Retief, whose party or parties would you blame for the decay in the city?Retief Odendaal (09:31.778)Well, I think first of all, one needs to realise that we've got a stability issue - and the coalitions that we've had in Nelson Mandela Bay have shown that it was unable to bring that stability to, much needed stability to NMB council. And that really, really is sad. Politicians couldn't put aside their own petty differences and couldn't work together in order to try and get Nelson Mandela Bay working again. And very often we see that it is because of the self-service and self-interest of our politicians that they collapse coalitions that have worked because some of our coalitions have made progress. I've just mentioned how our coalition amidst a very complicated coalition scenario made progress for the city. The reality however is that that coalition chaos and instability has allowed the city to be hijacked by criminal networks. And I think it's best orchestrated by the fact that the city also has the dubious record of having the most irregular expenditure of any other municipality on its annual financial statements. It represents 28 billion rand, it's billion with a B in irregular expenditure and every cent of that was funding spent and budget spent in contradiction of our supply chain policy and MFMA regulations. And that is the sad story of the client that is now Nelson Mandela Bay. Yeah, we now sit with a city that has got more than 10,000 street lights that's not working. We see that we've got thousands of potholes that can't be filled. There's not even a tender in place to purchase tar in order to start eradicating our puddle backlog. And all of this because of the instability that we've seen in council, which have not allowed us to fill the vacancies for senior administrators and also a key important position such as engineers.Retief Odendaal (11:55.65)On that score, we've seen how seven of the ten executive director positions have been vacant for the past two years. So there's in essence nobody to lead these departments. And then of course, our very own city manager, the city manager has been suspended for two years and she's been earning R250,000 a month and she hasn't done anything to earn that money. She of course is facing very serious charges criminal charges and that case is before the criminal court at the moment but sadly the city has been unable to deal with the disciplinary process against it. So that is the tale of Nelson Mandela Bay and you know it's led to a collapse of services. When a journalist phoned me yesterday, she spoke to me about the cash reserves that the municipality has and she was absolutely flabbergasted when I told her that there's still three and a half billion rand in cash reserves in the city and that we haven't got any long-term debt or relatively no long-term debt on our books and she said how is it possible that when you've got money, you're one of the few municipalities that actually have got money, that you can't deliver service and I said well it's very clear.It was broken by design and also good officials were chased out of the city and there is nobody left to do the work. There's not a single engineer left in the electricity department, but our electricity department is running at a 1.3 billion rent loss a year. Is there any wonder that that broken department can't make progress when there's nobody to lead it? You need engineers, you need artisans, you need plumbers in order to be able to provide service delivery to communities. And I'll maybe just say this tongue-in-cheek, I always say to the public whenever a politician is going to stand in front of you and promise you better service delivery, laugh at him or her and say, no politician can give you better service delivery. What politicians can do is they can fix municipal administrations or government administrations to be able to facilitate and create an environment in where…Retief Odendaal (14:13.678)..it’s conducive to officials to work properly and be able to improve service delivery. But that is the most important aspect. What is your plan to fix the municipality in order that at the end of the day, there's better service delivery to our residents on the ground?Chris Steyn (14:32.972)In another metro in Joburg, the Federal Chairperson of your party, Helen Zille, is aiming to be the next mayor. But already, she is going to face tough competition from certain parties. Who are going to be your biggest competitors?Retief Odendaal (14:54.296)Well, look, I want to make it very clear, Nelson Mandela Bay, is one, well, which is probably the Metro that enjoys the most support for the Democratic Alliance outside of the city of Cape Town in a Metro. We are going to campaign very hard for a majority government. And it is, it's absolutely possible. I think that we've seen that people have over the years become complacent. They didn't believe that the DA could win Nelson Mandela Bay. And that is my message. I'm saying that if you've tired of messy coalition governments, then look at the alternative. We can get an outright majority. But here's the thing, I also say to people, the DA will always put the best interest of South Africans at heart and first. And therefore we will work with the...we will play with the cards you, the hand you deal us. But the reality is that if you want change in your city, then please give us the strongest hand that you can possibly deal us. And that is a majority government. Because we've seen that the moment that the DA does not have a majority, that there are always parties looking to undermine the work that has been done and to try and destabilise those coalitions very often with promises of a better deal, of access to patronage, of promising more seats on the Mayoral Committee. And nowhere ever is it a discussion of what is in the interest of the city, what is in the interest of the municipality. We've in the past been accused as the DA that we don't support motions of No Confidence against the current administration, ANC-EFF administration that we have here in Nelson Mandela Bay. And then our response is very clear. We often say, why would we try and even support a Motion of No Confidence if we haven't put a coalition together? Because you just add to the chaos that's there, the instability that's there. Every time there's a Motion of No confidence, which gets raised so often by politicians these days in these hung councils,Retief Odendaal (17:15.978)…it causes further instability and ours is taking a responsible view to say that even when we are not in government, even when we are not in government, we must do absolutely everything in our ability to ensure that we assist in trying to stabilise these councils, something which we take very seriously here in Nelson Mandela Bay, but also elsewhere.Chris Steyn (17:41.147)So what is your vision for Nelson Mandela Bay?Retief Odendaal (17:44.536)Well, I think first of all, I want to take you back a little bit. Now, Nelson Mandela Bay has always been an industrial city and we have had very good developed infrastructure. We are a two-port city. We've got the deep water harbour…and then we also have the port… Port Elizabeth. And we've got well-developed infrastructure. Our economy quite heavily relies on the motor manufacturing industry and associated manufacturing industry. And we want to be able to not just retain that investment but also appeal to other role players in that sector. And therefore a key attribute will be to ensure that we invest in upgrading our infrastructure, something which we've got the ability to do. I've just said how the city has got no long-term debt on its books, how we still have some cash reserves and we will use that to our advantage to invest in infrastructures that we can have a better infrastructure when other municipalities, especially other metro municipalities up country, unfortunately don't necessarily have the ability to invest in large-scale infrastructure upgrades. That will certainly assist in attracting new infrastructure and also assist in keeping local investors here, but also looking at how responsive we are to investment. The city, unfortunately, is so caught up in red tape. I phone calls from developers almost on a weekly basis. Just last week, somebody came to see me. They have been struggling to get a R750 million investment going in the city for the past two years. Town planning amendments take a long time. We see how three-phase electricity connections sometimes take four or five months. Now imagine this, you build a warehouse and you complete that warehouse, but you wait for four or five months in order to get a three-phase electricity connection by the municipality. Or else you purchase a piece of land because you want to develop, you perhaps have an anchor tenant…Retief Odendaal (20:08.118)…waiting in the seams to be able to start business, but it takes you two and half years to get that town planning amendment through. By that time your anchor tenant is long gone and some of our developers unfortunately faces financial ruin. I had quite a big property developer tell me the other day that they will not invest another cent in Nelson Mandela Bay until there is a responsible government in place in Nelson Mandela Bay. He didn't say a DA government, he said a responsible government and I think that that's also something that we have to bear in mind. People in South Africa want responsible leaders, they want responsible governments, yes. And I believe that the DA has got the track record and has shown that how we can make a demonstrable difference in a short space of time. But our businesses and residents are just so...I think there's a better word to say and excuse me for this, but they are so gatvol of the bickering and the fighting of politicians. They want people to start working together for the interests of the city. That's what we want to do here in Nelson Mandela Bay. We want to bring the stability back. Another key aspect of my vision for the city is to ensure that we are more responsive towards the tourist industry as well. We have been an industrial city as I've explained to you last couple of years and we will only reclaim that status if we've got sound infrastructure and we can provide reliable water and sanitation and electrical infrastructure and a good road network for a business. But we also have the ability to attract…more role players in the tourism industry and a lot of visitors to Nelson Mandela Bay. If we're to be frank with one another some of our our competitor metros are very expensive to visit. Nelson Mandela Bay is cheap we've got 40 kilometers of unspoiled beaches 300 days of sunshine and a very very wonderful climate and it's a nice place to visit with very very friendly people, but sadly the city invests almost no money at all…Retief Odendaal (22:22.912)…in marketing our city as a destination city for especially local visitors and I think that it's a well placed to do just that. And then, you know, it is very important ultimately for any politician to fix the service delivery and I've mentioned already that, you know, to whoever wants to listen to me, that it's not rocket science to run a municipality. It's actually fairly easy if you make sure nobody steals from…Retief Odendaal (22:51.874)…from the public purse, you make sure that you get value for money when you do procure goods and services, and you make sure that you create a professional environment for our administrators and other senior office bearers, such as engineers, to be able to do their work, you can make progress with regards to service delivery. And that is key to what we want to achieve in Nelson Mandela Bay. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that in a city with one of the highest unemployment rates, Government sends back a billion rand in unspent grant funding in a city where you can spend that billion rand just about in any community because we are in serious need of not just building new infrastructure, but also refurbishing existing infrastructure. There's a lot that's been said about Johannesburg. Johannesburg, for example, is the cautionary tale which each and every municipality must take notice of. And Johannesburg, which has got the biggest budget of all municipalities in South Africa, we've seen that because they have not have proper maintenance and repairs programmes in place, that eventually your infrastructure collapse. And then you have a situation where hundreds of thousands of people sit without water simply because the infrastructure no longer can function properly. Nelson Mandela Bay, I believe, is the next best thing. We are really one of the few municipalities that are able to turn our infrastructure around. And by the way, our infrastructure is not nearly as decrepit as in some other municipalities, but we still have this ability to turn it around. However, that window period is fast closing because with the mismanagement that we've seen, such as the fact that our electricity department is running at a 1.3 billion rand. It will erode our financial sustainability and make it more difficult for us to turn the city around. And perhaps my final words I'll say on this is that it's a lack of place to live. You know, we've got such an amazing climate, which I've already mentioned. We've got good schools.Retief Odendaal (25:09.134)We are still a 20 minute city. I laugh at my colleagues and my friends that sit in traffic for an hour a day, an hour a day traveling to work or an hour a day traveling back from work. By that time I could go and fetch my dogs and we enjoy a lovely walk on the beach. And that is a quality lifestyle that you have here in Nelson Mandela Bay. The only thing we need to do is we need to fix the government. But the good news for South Africans, not just in Nelson Mandela Bay, but in every other…broken city and municipality in South Africa is that bad governments can be removed, corrupt people can be voted out of office. And I think that that is my message to each and every person in not just Nelson Mandela Bay, but in South Africa. Let's work for hardworking, ethical, God-fearing leaders to be able to turn our municipalities and our governments around.Chris SteynThank you. That was Retief Odendaal, the man chosen by the DA to unbreak Nelson Mandela BayRetief Odendaal (26:07.906)Thank you very much.

Retief Odendaal: The big battle for the Bay has begun

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