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The President of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, Loyiso Dotwana, says the country is at a “tipping point”, with everything coming to a head at the same time at both national and local level.
He was speaking on Wednesday at the 13th Annual General Meeting of the Chamber, where he said what was required was “out-of-the-box” thinking.
Dotwana said South Africa was in a serious state, with extreme load shedding now the norm and the country’s infrastructure in a dismal state.
“Couple this with the political drama which has unfolded in many of the countries Metros and Municipalities which has included this metro,” he added.
Dotwana noted that since 2016 Nelson Mandela Bay has faced political instability with coalition governments coming and going, along with this six different Mayors.
“Furthermore, since 2016 the Municipality has had 12 acting City Managers. It is therefore no surprise that this all has had a detrimental impact on the administration of the metro and the delivery of basic services,” he said.
“We face an economic survival crisis which requires all of us to pull together for the greater good of our local economy and jobs. This is not the time for political or personal agendas to determine the way forward,” Dotwana said.
He said however that focus should on being transparent about what the issues are and how can we solve them as a united front.
Dotwana said that interventions to address a myriad of challenges including rampant vandalism and addressing the City’s water woes, were not about organised business attempting to take over the role of government or the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.
He said it was “rather about the involvement and action of all the relevant stakeholders to save investment and jobs through this emergency period. The Chamber remains apolitical and will work with stakeholders and partners who will do the right thing,” he said.
Chamber CEO, Denise van Huysteen, also highlighted a range of areas where collaboration between the Chamber and various stakeholders yielded successes that included their adoption of 19 sub-stations for safeguarding against rampant vandalism and their Adopt A Leak project to fix water leaks at schools.
Dotwana meanwhile, spoke of the need for all stakeholders to come together to form a new type of social compact.
“This must be focused on re-building our country and metro for the benefit of all. There is so much potential and together we can tap into this,” he said.
