Northern areas residents feel they can’t win in the Bay
ONE can almost feel the pain of betrayal of people living in Port Elizabeth’s northern areas regarding the mess that is the coalition government in Nelson Mandela Bay.
With the Patriotic Alliance (PA) pulling out of the coalition government, accusations of “broken promises” and “blackmail”, and Twitter fights, they seem to be the ones who are losing the most.
Ever since the DA-led coalition government came into power, I keep hearing how hard it is for northern areas residents.
Around a dinner table with friends living in Korsten, Gelvandale and Schauderville, complaints about possibly having to pay car licences rather than put food on the table turned to those about power struggles between coalition parties.
The power struggles are all one hears about, rather than how service delivery has improved.
“How does [Athol] Trollip expect us to pay car licences when we are struggling to put food on the table?” one friend said. “I could go to jail because my car licence disc is not paid up when I am struggling to barely afford petrol.”
“And the coalition government?” I asked out of curiosity. None of the friends had any faith in it. First, they all agreed former NMB mayor Danny Jordaan was good, but they felt used as coloured people and didn’t trust the ANC machinery.
Not voting for it was teaching the ANC a hard lesson.
I inquired about the hot potato of ex-con-turned-businessman Gayton McKenzie’s PA negotiating for the position of deputy mayor after the axing of the UDM’s Mongameli Bobani.
The whole fiasco is like watching a bad Africa Magic drama unfolding or applying for a government tender where there seems to be an exhausting meeting after exhausting meeting.
It would be a joke if it was funny, but it is not and northern areas residents, in my view, seem to be feeling the pinch.
Enter McKenzie, who talks the lingua of northern areas residents with the aim of shaking politics in the metro up.
When my company hosted McKenzie almost two years ago for an entrepreneurs’ breakfast at MBDA, at which he outlined his economic vision for the city, McKenzie said that he would shake up politics in Nelson Mandela Bay especially around crime in the northern areas.
First his PA party wanted the safety and security mayoral committee portfolio.
The PA’s Marlon Daniels is reported to have said, “We were clear from the beginning that we wanted the safety and security mayoral committee position, as well as that of deputy mayor. Subsequently, we were given the mayoral committee position for public health.”
Maybe I watch too many FBI movies, but giving a political party led by an ex-con a portfolio concerned with gangsters and crime seems logical to me.
But politics is not that simple, hence I requested answers from McKenzie regarding the PA’s ambitious requests.
According to McKenzie, the northern areas are “rated the second most crime-ridden areas in South Africa, just behind Cape Town”.
Then the PA’s drama with mayor Athol Trollip began around this portfolio. McKenzie alleges that Trollip had stated that he “cannot afford the PA the safety and security position because the DA MMC [member of the mayoral committee] in charge is his best performing MMC”.
What would any power battles be without arrows being thrown?
McKenzie writes, “The current MMC is actually the ward councillor for Ward 7, an office he never spent a single day in, let alone served that community from that ward who voted him in as ward councillor.”
The challenge with the PA’s reasoning of having someone from the community put into the safety and security mayoral committee position is equivalent to taking a housekeeper of a company and making him or her the chief executive when he or she does not possess the dynamics of how to move in those circles.
Then there is the hot potato of the deputy mayor’s position.
Who would have thought an ex-con turned businessman/politician and his relatively new party – with one seat in the metro council – would lead negotiations to occupy the second seat of the city?
In township language, that’s gangster.
Clearly ex-cons don’t play.
“The PA made it very clear that it wants the deputy mayor position.”
In true hustler form, the PA made a way by ensuring that then deputy mayor Mongameli Bobani was removed through a motion of no confidence in council.
Without bluntly saying so, the PA was indicating it was time to collect.
In street culture (and mafia movies like Legends), loyalty reigns supreme after help is given.
And if you are a girlfriend of a gangster, you are in for a fight if you dump a gangster after his gang has helped you.
But the issues around the coalition in NMB are unfortunately not a movie.
But it does sound like the DA, since it’s in coalition with PA, danced with it.
Trying to get oneself off the dance floor after waltzing with coalition partners only makes Trollip come across as a bully who wants to rule on his own.
According to McKenzie, “Trollip said the metro does not need a deputy mayor and can function with only a mayor with executive powers, together with MMCs.”
Someone might need to whisper to the mayor that hustlers do not play like that.
In a Twitter battle where UDM leader Bantu Holomisa accused the PA of blackmailing Trollip for the position of deputy mayor, Trollip replied that he would not be blackmailed by any person or any party.
McKenzie would not take it lying down, responding, “You have been spoilt by the many subservient blacks who have repeatedly asked you as to how high they should jump”.
With the PA withdrawing from the coalition and governance in NMB hanging in the balance, one can truly make a political TV series similar to The Fixer, without the leadership skills of fictional character Olivia Pope.
Despite coalition parties saying that the fights are in the interest of northern areas residents, word on the ground is that northern area residents are not buying it and are feeling betrayed by the power struggles between parties.