NMB Business Chamber
The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber has signed a ground-breaking memorandum of understanding with the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.
The agreement paves the way for local businesses to partner with the municipality on implementing solutions to challenges facing the Metro like crumbling infrastructure, service delivery issues and vandalism.
Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssteen says the MOU will rebuild an enabling environment for business and is not an attempt to take over the work of the municipality.
She says instead of criticizing from the sidelines, business wants to contribute practically by rolling up its sleeves to help get Nelson Mandela Bay working again.
"We all recognize the critical nature of all the issues which we face in this country and our Metro," said Van Huyssteen.
"Instead of being overwhelmed by this, it is vital that we all collaborate to change the current trajectory - it starts with us taking positive actions which can make a difference."
The agreement makes the expertise and resources of the business community available to the municipality, on a voluntary basis.
Van Huyssteen stressed that the Chamber will not be considered an implementing agent of the municipality, nor is it a formal public-private partnership.
"The intention of the partnership is not for business to take over the work of the municipality but rather to complement their efforts wherever possible in a time of crisis," she said.
Previously, initiatives driven by the Business Chamber to assist the municipality in addressing urgent challenges, including the Adopt-a-Leak and Adopt-a-Substation programmes, required separate agreements to be approved by Council before they could be rolled out. .
To date, Adopt-a-Substation has beefed up security at 17 substations in the Metro while the Adopt-a-Leak initiative saw the repair of more than 4000 leaks in low income households last year, resulting in a daily saving of 1.6 million litres of clean water.
This new agreement will enable the Chamber to support the Municipality on specific interventions and also enable the geographic clusters run under the Chamber umbrella - in Deal Party, Kariega, North End, Perseverance and Struandale - to mobilise collaboration between businesses and the municipality to improve conditions within their immediate operating environments.
Executive Mayor Retief Odendaal welcomed the agreement as a broad framework that would allow greater collaboration and partnership between the Municipality and the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber.
"We need a whole-of-society approach to the challenges facing our Metro, and we welcome this positive step to give expression to that," he said.
"The MOU will create the opportunity for more swift and efficient interventions as it is a standing agreement between the Metro and the Chamber, and by extension their members, which can be implemented regardless of who is at the helm of the municipality."
