The Mandela Bay Development Agency (MBDA) has announced the appointment of their interim CEO Ashraf Adam to the position on a permanent basis, for the next five years, and effective immediately.
Adam has 28 years experience as a policy adviser to many spheres of government and has been helping out in a temporary capacity at the MBDA for the past 7 months.
Addressing a media briefing on Thursday, Adam said his vision was to build on the MBDA's purpose as there had been some waywardness in the past year without a permanent CEO at the helm.
His focus areas going forward include regenerating the Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage CBD's and turning the Metro's townships into disireable places to live and work in.
Adam said the MBDA's relationship with its owner - the Municipality - was key, and that they would be guided by the Metro's new 15 year vision which is still in draft in form.
He said that by default, the MBDA had become a facilities manager and that it embraced the challenge of looking after and nurturing the likes of the NMB Stadium, the Campanile, the Donkin and the Helenvale Resource Centre.
Adam, who was introduced to the media by MBDA Chair Phil Goduka, said they wanted to do the same with Bayworld but agreed with Executive Mayor Athol Trollip that the facility was not a place for a dolphin population - their home was across the road in the Indian Ocean.
Adam said his five year vision was to turn Nelson Mandela Bay into a true post-Apartheid city where vulnerable areas become desireable places to live in. He said a lot of planning was going into the nodes of Helenvale, New Brighton, Motherwell and Despatch.
There is a long term plan to take the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium off the grid so that it becomes completely self sustainable while the future of the old Telkom Park continues to receive attention. "In the previous financial year R5 million was rolled over for the demolition of Telkom Park which didn't happen," said Adam. "We then investigated as to why there had been no takers to develop the area. The approach we are taking now is to get it demolished although it will cost more than double the original quote of R5 million."
Adam said the thinking was that the area in question was too big to be a feasable venture for one developer but that if it is 'parcelled' into smaller sections with the relevant zoning as part of it, value is immediately added to the land and it becomes so much easier for developers going forward. He said it was also imperative that any future development of the Telkom Park precinct does not add to the Metro's bulk infrastructure woes but rather contributes to solving it.
