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The Democratic Alliance said Nelson Mandela Bay was facing a "looming cash crisis" as National Treasury was withholding just under R1.6bn in grant funding.
DA MPL, Retief Odendaal, said this was made up of R753.843m with respect to the 2019/20 financial year and R839.117m for the 2020/21 financial year.
In response to a parliamentary question, Eastern Cape Finance MEC, Mlungisi Mvoko, revealed that the grant funding was being withheld because of "complete governance failures" and "failure to implement the forensic investigation recommendations by Deloitte on the PTNG (Public Transport Network) grant" among other reasons.
MEC Mvoko said that since December 2019 funding for four grants amounting R700.1m had been withheld by National Treasury from Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.
He said there were also a host of compliance matters that the Metro has to attend to.
"The withholding of grant funding and addressing compliance matters could lead to improved Council and administrative good governance, and the implementation of consequence management," he said in reply to another question.
Odendaal said the Metro was "facing a looming cash crisis that could very easily lead to staff members going unpaid and not being able to pay for bulk service charges if the impasse between the Metro and National Treasury is not resolved soon."
He said if the funding was forfeited to Treasury, residents could be facing "horrendous double-digit rate increases" over the next three financial years to recover the shortfall.
