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As the country prepares to start a new decade, Eastern Cape premier and ANC provincial chairperson looks back at the challenges of the governing party and how they affected the troubled Nelson Mandela Metro over the past decade.
In an interview with City Press, Oscar Mabuyane who was the province’s secretary from 2009 to 2017, admitted that the problems of Nelson Mandela Bay have long been there.
The embattled metro has been on the spotlight since a coalition government led by the DA took over in 2016, with the ANC forced into the opposition benches after it failed to win an outright majority in the local elections that year.
Athol Trollip became the mayor in 2016 with the United Democratic Movement’s Mongameli Bobani as his deputy. But the DA-led coalition was short-lived as a new coalition emerged, led by the UDM’s Bobani as mayor with the help of the ANC and other smaller parties, dethroned the DA in August last year.
But as the chaos continued in Eastern Cape’s largest metro, that arrangement too, did not last with the ANC suddenly disillusioned with Bobani’s waywardness, voted to remove him early this month.
Bobani is challenging his removal in court, leaving the metro in limbo.
Mabuyane acknowledged that the metro has been a problem for the governing party since the emergence of the Congress of the People [Cope] in 2008. Many ANC leaders in the region left the ANC to join Cope.
“The breakaway of Cope affected that region hugely because if you look at the ANC structure, almost the entire structure and leadership of the regional executive committee left the ANC for Cope. That destroyed the infrastructure of the ANC.
“We had a challenge of rebuilding the ANC from scratch in that region and went into 2009 with a task team that was there,” said Mabuyane.
He admitted that the ANC had a narrow escape in the 2011 when the party won the metro after the local government elections by a small margin.
Mabuyane said this was a clear sign of the impact Cope’s formation had.
“We experienced another decline in the 2014 general elections where we got less than 50% [of the votes] and a further decline in 2016 that led us to loss the control of the municipality. But we were humbled by that we knew we had to go back to the drawing board and look at various options of making us to come back much more stronger,” he said.
He said there was no denying that the ANC has had challenges because it is a big organisation with its own internal dynamics that sometimes paralyse it.
“You take two steps forward and you find yourself taking five steps backwards because of the internal dynamics in the organisation. Those are real issues that we cannot deny,” he said.
The premier said as the ANC they had decided to use the challenges and setbacks as positives in order to find permanent solutions. “Yes Nelson Mandela metro is one of those negatives that we cannot run away from. It is a huge region and the metro is the economic hub of the province.”
He said the coalitions had resulted in patronage networks and some people being killed over tenders and other things. “It has been a very unfortunate... we don’t want to see it [happen] again.”
As the premier he wanted people to respect government which should serve everyone.
Mabuyane said when people were voted into power they were expected to serve the entire populace and this was what they have learnt with Nelson Mandela metro debacle.
“With my background and experience as secretary of the ANC, I know some of the areas that we need to work on and I keep on sharing those weakness with the collective. We are determined that the Nelson Mandela metro is about serving the people not any peripheral factional dynamics, be it in the ANC or in the coalition space. And we have to look at issues of a practical alignment as we move forward,” he said.
Focusing on this year since he took over as premier after the May 8 general elections, he said it had been a year of mixed feelings. They have been working flat out to consolidate government.
Mabuyane said they have tried to inculcate a new culture of patriotism and to improve the working conditions of employees to stimulate productivity. The provincial development plan has been finalised as the long-term vision is to address a number of areas where there have been weaknesses.
“This is also aimed at bringing together a team that I believe can take us to another level at executive committee. We are creating all these dynamic relations with all other sectors, traditional leaders, churches, civil society organisations and the business sector so we can pull everyone in one direction.
“Many [people] have been complaining that government has been missing in action so we are trying to sort out all those problems by putting systems in place to deal with our challenges,” he said.
“Come February next year in the state of the province address we will not be talking about just the vision. We spoke about our vision in July. Now we will be talking concrete things, what is going to happen by when and by who departmentally. That will be further be elaborated in the policy speeches,” he said, adding that they were already working the budget for next year.
The premier said a lot needed to be done in improving government service delivery and dealing with issues of corruption and crime. The year had been characterised by serious incidents of gender-based violence, femicide and the death of initiates. On average 60 initiates have died every year.
However, there have been were some positives to look back on, including the young people who performed well on the international stage.
“You look at your rugby players coming from the province who represented us very well at an international stage. You look at Miss Universe, Zozibini Tunzi who comes from these humble beginnings and she became Miss Universe and Idols SA winner Luyolo Yiba. You look at many others at various fields that have stood up and sent a message to every young person to say, ‘your current circumstances cannot be a determiner of your destiny,” Mabuyane said.
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