After a year in office, Mayor Babalwa Lobishe achieved a fraction of her set targets to improve service delivery in the Nelson Mandela Bay metro. This has poked holes in her leadership of the municipality, which is now receiving support from national government under Section 154 of the Constitution. Lobishe announced a list of 85 key deliverables under the ‘All Hands on Deck’ programme that she said she would achieve in her first 100 days in office.
Amid criticism over deplorable service delivery in Nelson Mandela Bay since the ANC-led coalition took over, Mayor Babalwa Lobishe has defended the municipality’s efforts, stating her detractors acted blindly to the progress made. After more than a year at the helm of the city, Lobishe faces a backlash over her apparent lacklustre leadership that almost brought the city to the verge of collapse. When Lobishe took over the mayoral chain in November 2024, she announced a list of 85 key deliverables under the “All Hands on Deck” programme that she said she would achieve in her first 100 days in office.
The list was made up of service delivery issues that Lobishe said she would ensure were resolved, and governance matters that would result in the proper functioning of the city. Instead of achieving the targets 13 months later, Lobishe roped in national government support to help her achieve some of her service delivery goals. The ANC (with 48 seats) under Lobishe leads an eight-party coalition with the EFF (8), NA (3), DOP (2), PAC (1), AIC (1), AIM (1) and enjoys support from the UDM (1) in the 120-seat council.
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The coalition partners all form part of the mayoral committee as they head the different departments responsible for service delivery. Some of Lobishe’s targets include the finalisation and approval of the organisational structure in line with the human resource staff regulations, the filling of senior management, and 100 critical vacancies in various levels of the municipality and approval of the overtime policy to eliminate the abuse of municipal resources. Lobishe had promised to finalise the long outstanding matter of the suspended city manager Noxolo Nqwazi, improve capital budget spending to avoid unapproved rollovers by National Treasury and put measures in place to ensure that creditors are paid within 30 days of receipt of invoices.
She had also committed to fast-track all the supply chain management issues, improve revenue collection and resolve the leadership crisis in the unit to accelerate service delivery, and develop and approve the road map for municipal standard chart of accounts (mSCOA) compliance, among other commitments. The mSCOA is a standardised financial system and business reform in local government, mandated by National Treasury to bring uniformity, transparency and better data quality to municipal budgeting, spending, and reporting across all financial and non-financial activities.
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