The national government has initiated a support partnership with the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, which is facing severe governance failures and a financial crisis marked by R25 billion in unauthorised, irregular, and wasteful expenditure.
The intervention was announced by the Deputy Minister for Cooperative Governance, Dickson Masemola, who is in the city to address the mounting concerns. The metro’s problems, including failing infrastructure, unstable leadership, and an inability to spend crucial grant money, have been building for years, culminating in a formal request for help.
“They have said to us that they require support on finances because they have got a problem with regard to expenditure,” said Deputy Minister Masemola. He confirmed that the city’s failure to spend grants appropriately risked punitive action from the National Treasury.
Municipal officials acknowledged they have been unable to keep up with the city’s challenges, citing years of systemic neglect that left departments overwhelmed. A municipal spokesperson clarified that the request for national support was made months ago, disputing any notion that the move was a last-minute reaction to a threat from Treasury.
“We’re not moving because there’s a threat by National Treasury to withdraw the funds. We have requested the support in April,” the spokesperson said, explaining that logistical delays at the provincial and national levels had postponed the response. “We’ve raised our hand for support because we could see that challenges of this municipality are mounting from 8 years back of neglect and you can’t undo them within a period of 12 months.”
Deputy Minister Masemola was quick to frame the move as a cooperative effort, not a takeover. He described it as a partnership to provide “extra hands” in struggling departments, such as Finance.
“We couldn’t just use a distanced analysis of the state of the city and probably from that point of view just finalize a package and come and impose it here,” Masemola stated. He emphasized the importance of a sequenced process to ensure “collective management and the ownership” of the recovery efforts undertaken with the metro.
The partnership comes amid a serious warning from the National Treasury. Due to the R25 billion in irregular expenditure, the city risks losing its equitable share of national funds. The Deputy Minister acknowledged Treasury’s authority to act unilaterally.
“Section 216 is a national treasury responsibility… to the extent that they might have made their mind and a decision preliminarily to serve a notice, that is their exclusive function to do so. They don’t have to get any mandate from anybody,” Masemola explained.
The immediate task for the Department of Cooperative Governance and the municipality is to finalize a credible recovery plan swiftly. This plan must reassure the National Treasury of the metro’s commitment and ability to stabilize its finances. With the new support team on the ground, the pressure is now on the municipal administration to restore governance, strengthen its departments, and prevent the further loss of critical grant funding.