The issue of migration was sensitive given high unemployment and could escalate quickly if mishandled.
DA mayoral candidate Retief Odendaal said basic service delivery in Nelson Mandela Bay had collapsed under the current ANC-led coalition, pointing to broken streetlights, sewer blockages, vandalised infrastructure and industrial decay as evidence of what he described as years of neglect.
Odendaal, who briefly served as mayor before being removed in a motion of no confidence, said the metro’s problems stemmed from unstable coalitions and unqualified officials rather than a lack of resources.
Asked what he would offer residents of areas such as Missionvale, KwaNobuhle, Bethelsdorp and Kariega, Odendaal said he would headhunt skilled professionals and appoint officials based on competence rather than political affiliation.
He said he would fund proper maintenance and refurbishment programmes across departments and set fixed turnaround times for basic services, including replacing a streetlight within seven days and fixing a sewer blockage within 24 hours.
Odendaal said he would invest heavily in infrastructure to support economic growth and build a fully functioning metro police force to work alongside the police on by-law enforcement, alongside CCTV infrastructure to improve safety in areas where organised criminals had vandalised existing cameras.
He said he would take a zero-tolerance approach to corruption, including prosecuting officials and recovering lost funds, and cited an unauthorised contract in which a R25 million transformer was rented out at R250 000 a month as an example of the losses the city had suffered.
The Citizen reached out to the municipality for comment. This article will be updated once a response is received.
Odendaal said the DA had taken the metro to court over changes to electricity tariffs for the 2026-27 financial year.
According to Odendaal, officials had claimed an overall increase of 10% to 11%, but had scrapped step tariffs, which pushed the real increase for the first 300 units to 29% for ordinary households.
He said poorer residents on the Assistance-to-the-Poor scheme faced a 61% increase for the first 250 units bought after their initial 50 free units.
Odendaal said the electricity department was running at a loss of R1.5 billion, a cost he believed should not be passed on to residents.
He said the DA had obtained a court order forcing the metro to reinstate the previous year’s tariffs, which he described as proof of the administration’s incompetence.
Odendaal said his previous coalition, made up of 10 parties, had been the largest ever assembled in South Africa, and argued that the arrangement had made even routine decisions almost impossible, undermining service delivery in the process.
He recalled that appointing two contractual engineers to bring back institutional knowledge had turned into a major dispute among coalition partners.
“Everything becomes a bona fide fight,” he said. Asked which parties were off the table for a future coalition, he said, “Definitely, the EFF. And the ANC.”
He added that the ACDP had proven to be a reliable partner for the DA over the past few years.
On the Patriotic Alliance, Odendaal said the party had previously chosen to govern with the ANC and EFF whenever it had the opportunity, a pattern he believed voters had taken note of, adding that the party’s involvement had contributed to the instability that followed when the mayorship was offered to Gary Van Niekerk.
Responding to a resident’s claim that political leaders cared more about business and personal enrichment than the poor, Odendaal said the ANC and EFF administration had shown little interest in progress.
He pointed to the mayor wearing Louis Vuitton sweaters costing tens of thousands of rand and the deputy mayor filming himself drinking expensive French champagne in first class as examples of leaders being disconnected from residents’ struggles.
Odendaal said the EFF ran the metro’s electricity department and oversaw the public participation process that led to steep tariff increases affecting the middle class and the poor, despite the party’s claims of championing poor communities. He said parties such as the ANC were focused on power and patronage rather than the people they represented.
Odendaal said the stability of a future DA-led administration depended on voters delivering an outright majority, arguing that a majority government would not face removal over its full five-year term.
He said even a coalition of two or three aligned parties would be far more stable than the previous 10-party arrangement. Addressing voters who felt all parties had failed the metro, Odendaal said the DA had never governed Nelson Mandela Bay on its own, always operating within what he described as hamstrung coalitions.
He said that during his eight to nine months as mayor, the city recorded its only unqualified audit opinion in 14 years, alongside the highest expenditure of conditional grant funding in that period.
He said the metro’s cash reserves stood at R5 billion when he left office and had since fallen to R3 billion, with little to show for the decline.
Responding separately to a resident who said he no longer voted because politicians could not be trusted, Odendaal said the chaos in local government was political and could only be resolved through politics, and urged voters to back a party with a proven record of delivery.
Asked how the DA would work with major employers after a tyre manufacturer closed its Gqeberha factory, Odendaal said the rise in unemployment amounted to a crisis for a city with a historically strong manufacturing base.
He said the municipality needed to make it as easy as possible for businesses to remain profitable, including guaranteeing stable water and electricity supply after interruptions had previously affected the Ford plant.
He said industrial areas such as Markman needed urgent road repairs after damage caused by manganese trucks, and that the metro should grow other sectors such as tourism by marketing itself as an affordable destination.
Odendaal said Nelson Mandela Bay remained the “most fixable metro” in the country because it was not bankrupt and its infrastructure, though declining, had not yet collapsed, and said the city could benefit from “saving migration” by leveraging its two working harbours and quality of life to attract investment.
Business chamber steps in to maintain infrastructure
He added that too many unqualified officials held senior positions in the municipality, to the point where some could not write their own speeches.
He claimed that while serving as mayor, he had recognised the coalition would not survive and had worked with the CEO of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber to protect infrastructure regardless of political instability.
He said the two had drafted a memorandum of understanding, later passed unanimously by council, giving the chamber legal authority to maintain municipal infrastructure including electrical substations, pump stations and roads.
Odendaal said the arrangement allowed the private sector to operate in what he called a parallel structure to the municipality, describing it as a blueprint for what business could achieve when government failed, and said the city would have been far worse off without the chamber’s intervention.
On the treatment of foreign-owned businesses, Odendaal said the migration issue was sensitive given high unemployment and could escalate quickly if mishandled.
He said no undocumented foreign nationals should be permitted in the country, and that individuals needed to be properly documented, warning that undocumented migrants took jobs away from unemployed South Africans and added further pressure to already strained services.
He said years of poor administration had left the country’s borders effectively open, and that while the Department of Home Affairs was making progress, the scale of the task remained significant.
Odendaal described the issue as a “fork and a crate fight” that could explode if political parties used it for political gain rather than addressing it responsibly.
