Athol Trollip doesn’t know when he will return to power as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay, but he is pretty sure he will do so. In the meantime his party, the Democratic Alliance, will sit in the opposition benches of the city – and expose corruption. He believes Mr Mongameli Bobani, the new mayor, has a track record of corruption and his party, the United Democratic Movement has used dodgy money to fight its election battles.
By Donwald Pressly*
Make no bones about it, Athol Trollip is a man on a mission to return his party to power in the Bay – which includes Port Elizabeth, Motherwell, Despatch and Uitenhage. He lost his position as mayor last month after his former coalition partner, Bobani, turned against him. The Economic Freedom Fighters also carried out its threat to “cut the throat of whiteness” and withdrew its tacit support of the DA led coalition which included the ACDP, Cope and a number of small parties.
Trollip believes there is incontrovertible evidence that Bobani is corrupt. He used a company called Milongani Eco Consulting as a front company, charges Trollip. Bobani insisted on paying this company millions of rands for city waste cleaning service. “No sooner had we (the city) transferred R15 million (for waste services), Milongani were paid two million rand on the same day…” Bobani, whose party held two seats in the post August 2016 council became Deputy Mayor under Trollip. But he was also put in political charge of city health services. Milongani, whose owner lives in Limpopo province, got a tender of R20 million altogether.
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Trollip smelt a rat that something was awry when he discovered that his Deputy Mayor was involved in appointing UDM members to jobs in the department’s expanded public works programme. In terms of the coalition governance agreement patronage provision was simply a no-no. If there were jobs provided by the municipality, they had to be through a fair and equitable system.
He found that there were irregularities in the roll-out of these jobs when he took over the health function from Bobani when he fired him as Deputy Mayor.
It appeared that Bobani and the UDM – led by former Transkei dictator General Bantu Holomisa – were bankrolling the party’s elections through providing jobs for political party pals for which – in exchange – private sector companies, received tenders from the city.
I challenge any of you, supporting the ousting of Mayor Trollip, to argue for the so called New Mayor Mongameli Bobani.
A classic case of Adv. Thuli Madonsela being replaced by Busisiwe Mkhwebane.#NMBCouncil
— Mbazi Kweta (@Lmtyobile) August 27, 2018
Trollip said there was a key by-election in Nelson Mandela Bay before the general municipal election in 2016. In a huge electoral upset, the UDM took the Veeplaas seat. Its share of the vote rose from 4 percent to 6 percent. There were flashy cars used for canvassing. Blankets and food was distributed to voters left, right and centre. In that same seat in the general municipal poll of August 2016, the UDM’s share of the vote evaporated.
Trollip said when he asserted that the UDM was using dirty money to fund its elections, “the general paled”. But the general has never acknowledged any corruptive practice and has defended Bobani to the last. Now Bobani is mayor. The general simply dubbed Trollip as “arrogant”.
Trollip believes the UDM led coalition – which includes the African National Congress – will not be able but to help itself and return to the corruptive practices of the past. These corruptive practices of the previous ANC-run municipality are well documented in How to Steal A City, The Battle for Nelson Mandela Bay by Crispian Olver. Trollip believes that the new administration will go back to type. It will plunder the city – which Trollip said the DA coalition had returned to fiscal health – again.
Another reason Trollip is no longer mayor was that three DA councillors – two ward councillors and one proportional list councillor – backed the motion of no confidence in his administration. The three have been dismissed and two by-elections are pending in the northern areas of Port Elizabeth.
Trollip says the wards are largely “coloured” voters – who swung heavily against the ANC to the DA in 2016. He believes the two seats, in the northern parts of the city of Port Elizabeth, will be won back with a bigger portion of the vote, but those by-elections are likely to occur only in January. But the DA caucus is currently short of two of its 57 seats in the 120 member city council until then.
The DA Eastern Cape provincial leader Nqaba Bhanga is currently leader of the opposition in the Nelson Mandela Bay council. So does Trollip expect to be mayor again? Yes. He says that he was the DA candidate for mayor in 2016. He stood for a five-year term. While he said his party could deploy him elsewhere – he is federal chairperson of the DA – he has not made himself available for the provincial and national lists for the 2019 national election. So it appears he will remain a Nelson Mandela Bay councillor. He described himself as “under-employed” at the moment – but ready to return to office in the long run.
He knows that Bobani has already signed off some dodgy contracts. There is little doubt that the UDM and ANC will attempt to use city money to fund its campaigns, he believes. “We in the DA are good at being in (the) opposition,” he said, noting that if there were a general municipal election tomorrow in his neck of the woods, “we (the DA) would get well over 50 percent (of the vote)”. Asked if the DA was at war with the UDM, he said no, but there was “certainly (a war) between Holomisa and I.”
- Donwald Pressly covered parliament for 25 years. He is vice-chairperson of the Cape Town Press Club and now writes what he must.
