Madwara tipped to be next mayor
PORT Elizabeth businessman Mandla Madwara is tipped to be Nelson Mandela Bay’s next mayor.
ANC insiders said that during the last two days of heated behind-the-scenes talks, Madwara’s name topped the list of potential candidates being considered by the party’s most powerful leaders to replace Ben Fihla.
Madwara said yesterday that although he had “heard the rumour”, he had not been officially approached to take over what has become an increasingly contentious job.
A source involved in the talks, however, said Madwara had been approached by the regional task team and told he could be asked to take up the position later this month.
Madwara is president of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber and a former city councillor with a long history of activism in the ANC. He is also a prominent socialite, dubbed in entertainment circles as the Bay’s “social mayor”.
He became a vocal critic of the deteriorating state of the municipality in recent years and, through the chamber, actively sought to highlight the metro’s political and administrative instability.
Supporters say in the right political climate, Madwara could turn the municipality around.
Some say he appeals to the middle class and large business community which is frustrated with the municipality.
Critics, however, say he could struggle to get
support from the various ANC factions and has become aloof and out of touch with members at grassroots level.
Following a series of meetings with ANC national bosses which kicked off on Sunday, party members were widely expecting President Jacob Zuma to reshuffle the city’s mayoral leadership while in Port Elizabeth yesterday. He did not.
Instead, a meeting between Zuma and ANC councillors scheduled for yesterday morning was cancelled at the last minute.
Zuma and the rest of the ANC’s top six then spent hours at the Wool Exchange building, locked in marathon discussions with the ANC’s Eastern Cape leadership and regional task team in a bid to fix the crisis in the Bay.
At a media conference after the meeting, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said they would be back in the city on May 18 to “strengthen the leadership”.
He said a report detailing the state of the municipality was presented during the meeting with Zuma.
Mantashe said the technical report highlighted serious problems “related to capacity and manipulation of processes”.
“Areas that came out very strongly as worrying are ... human settlements, bulk infrastructure and youth development.
“With these reports, we are going back to finalise our intervention to strengthen the leadership of the municipality,” he said.
“There were quite a number of things that came up.
“There were issues of sanitation, water, the IPTS, infrastructure [which] needs full attention. And the problem of housing which also needs correction.”
An insider said Madwara had explained that for him or anyone else to take over the job of mayor, a thorough intervention was needed in the administration.
Secondly, the national leadership had to ensure that the political climate was conducive to a new mayor doing his job.
A national government insider said on Sunday that the report also pointed to a number of executive directors who “were found with their hands in the till”.
The report is said to contain allegations of large-scale corruption and looting by a powerful network of officials, Bay politicians and business people.
The national working committee members met six clusters of ANC branches to assess the work done by the regional task team so far.
“Almost every branch had the opportunity to engage and interact with the national working committee of the ANC,” Mantashe said.
“It gave us the opportunity to assess whether the regional task team is making progress or otherwise, since we put it together.
“We are comfortable that organisational work is being done.
“There are still some challenges that we need to attend to. That’s why we locked ourselves up here today to see where we can strengthen our work.
“We will look at the technical report, analyse the issues and come back on May 18 and then finalise this phase of the intervention,” he said.