Nelson Mandela Bay cannot settle its city-manager dispute. Ratepayers keep paying.

A collapsed council meeting has prolonged a costly leadership standoff, without resolving the disciplinary dispute or explaining when a decision will be taken.

Nelson Mandela Bay’s dispute over suspended city manager Noxolo Nqwazi has reached another impasse: a council meeting that was supposed to consider her position failed to attract enough councillors to proceed.

Daily Maverick reported on 29 September that the meeting was the final scheduled sitting before the November municipal elections. The failure to reach a quorum left a contested disciplinary outcome unresolved and raised the prospect that an incoming council would inherit the argument.

For residents, the immediate issue is practical. A municipality needs an unambiguous chain of authority, a lawful process for resolving employment disputes and councillors willing to take decisions. This meeting delivered none of those answers.

A procedural ruling is not a finding on every allegation

According to the reporting, the disciplinary proceedings were terminated after problems with how the process was constituted and attended. That development should not be presented as a finding that every underlying allegation against Nqwazi was disproved.

The municipality has disputed her return to work. Acting city manager Lonwabo Ngoqo reportedly instructed senior officials not to take instructions from her or accept her presence at municipal offices. This leaves two distinct questions: what the disciplinary decision means, and what the municipality is lawfully entitled to do next.

A political argument about who supports whom cannot settle either question. The council needs the ruling, the relevant legal advice and a recorded decision that explains its next step.

The price of waiting

The published figure of R6.7 million covers remuneration during Nqwazi’s suspension from February 2024 to April 2026. It is a dated total, not a verified bill through the end of September. Any updated calculation needs the payroll record and the period it covers.

Suspension with pay is not, by itself, proof of wrongdoing by the employee or the employer. But a process that continues for years creates a legitimate accountability question: what prevented it from reaching a timely and defensible conclusion? Legal costs and acting arrangements should also be disclosed if residents are to understand the full cost.

The municipality’s wage obligations do not disappear because councillors fail to meet. Nor does the need for an administration capable of carrying out everyday service responsibilities.

What residents can ask their representatives

The next council record should make three things easy to establish: which decision was required, why it could not be taken and when the matter will return. An attendance register would help distinguish recorded attendance and apologies from competing political accounts of the failed meeting.

The financial account also needs clear boundaries. Remuneration paid during suspension, legal fees and the cost of acting arrangements are separate lines. Adding them without checking the dates, the underlying records and any overlap could produce another misleading total. A defensible account should identify both the amounts and the period covered.

The employee’s rights and the municipality’s obligations both require a lawful process. Residents can demand urgency without demanding a predetermined disciplinary result. What they should expect is an explanation of the authority under which the administration is operating and a dated route to resolving the uncertainty.

The decision residents are owed

DA caucus leader Rano Kayser blamed the ANC’s absence for the failed meeting. That is a political accusation and requires the ANC’s response; it should not be treated as an established explanation of every councillor’s conduct.

Residents need something more useful than competing statements: the attendance register, the legal position on the disciplinary ruling, the identity and authority of the official currently directing the administration, and a date for the next decision.

There is no basis to claim that every service failure in the Bay flows from this dispute. The narrower failure is already serious enough. Council had an unresolved matter involving public money and administrative leadership, and did not meet the basic requirement to decide it.