Heads must roll at crumbling municipality

Nelson Mandela Bay has many problems — political instability, a major water leaks problem costing the city hundreds of millions of rand annually, ageing electricity infrastructure, potholes, and the city is filthy. That is just a fraction of the problems; there are many others.

And in spite of this, there are people who still believe in this city and want to do business here.

But despite their many efforts, they are frustrated from doing so because either there are bureaucrats who are hellbent on doing their jobs as painfully slowly as possible, or the entire value chain is broken.

This is something our newspaper has covered several times.

Every single time we receive the same response: a politician, city manager or department head promises to intervene, but a few months later we are back to square one.

And in the midst of this, you have businesses waiting in the wings for their applications to be processed because they want to invest in the city.

Town planners say the office that is meant to push through building plans has been closed since March 27.

But the lockdown has only amplified what was already a big problem, with some applications taking up to 18 months to be processed.

This is completely unacceptable and heads should roll. But we know that there will be no accountability because the rot and instability in the city starts at the very top.

Granted, there are a handful of really good civil servants in the municipality who do their best every day.

But they cannot do it on their own.

What is taking place at the land planning department is a symptom of a much bigger problem in the municipality — a city that is battered and broken by years of political and administrative instability.