Nelson Mandela Bay faces surge in crime as safety budget goes unspent

Nelson Mandela Bay has seen a significant increase in house robberies, and copper theft, cable theft and car-jamming, while the procurement of technology to help fight crime has become snagged in red tape.

The metro has spent only 22% of its capital budget for safety and security, despite metro personnel admitting in council documents that more than 250 CCTV cameras are out of order.

The member of the mayoral committee for safety and security, Luyanda Lawu, said: “Most of the projects were the procurement of specialised vehicles and technology equipment. In implementing the projects, the directorate had to follow supply-chain processes. As part of the procurement processes, the projects must go through the scrutiny of procurement committees.

“There have been challenges with the committees not sitting to assess, evaluate and adjudicate the capital budget projects. As a result of the above and timelines attached to the process, projects could not be fully implemented with the allocated budget in 2024/2025.

“As a proactive measure, the Directorate [of Safety and Security] requested the budget to be carried over to the new financial year 2025/2026.

“With the ‘Safer City’ budget, the same approach was undertaken as the project had technological equipment that had to be procured through formal tender processes — these would require skilled, specialised service providers.”

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House robberies

Wayne Hart, the spokesperson for Nelson Mandela Bay’s biggest security firm, Atlas Security, said there had been “a significant increase of house robberies … where a resident is at home during the time of the burglary — the home owners are either harmed during the burglary, or are not aware that the burglary is taking place as they might have been in another part of the home”.

He said copper and cable theft in the metro remained high, and there had been a major spike in car-jamming, where thieves use a jamming device to block the signal to lock a car’s doors and temporarily disable the immobiliser before stealing the vehicle.

The DA’s Retief Odendaal said the metro’s political leaders were out of their depth.

He said R17.35-million of the metro’s R31.924-million safety and security budget was allocated to the “Safer City” capital project, which fell flat as no contract was put in place to deliver the work. A further R5-million was allocated to a troop carrier tender, which was non-responsive.

‘Coalition of corruption’

“Sadly, this underspending debacle is part of a much broader trend that has emerged under this ANC/EFF coalition of corruption, which is either stealing money or simply not spending it at all.

“Part of the problem is the total lack of oversight from the metro’s budget performance monitoring forum, which should sit quarterly to ensure that service delivery spending is on track. It did not sit for 588 days, between 22 February 2024 and 2 October 2025.

“This ANC/EFF coalition of corruption and their small-party pals are totally and utterly out of their depth, unable to organise committee oversight meetings, let alone spend budget on rolling out critical safety programmes. All this while our mothers, fathers, sons and daughters are facing an epidemic of crime across the metro,” said Odendaal, who intends to stand for mayor in next year’s municipal elections.

“If elected mayor, I commit to installing at least 200 high-tech cameras in crime hotspots. I will ensure that the Joint Operations Centre is fully operational and that all camera feeds are monitored 24/7 so that the moment a crime occurs, emergency services can be dispatched,” he said.

Cause for alarm

The CEO of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, Denise van Huyssteen, said the increase in serious crimes in the metro, including kidnappings and truck hijackings, was cause for alarm.

Read more: Kidnappings continue — man held after Gqeberha businessman abducted in Perridgevale last week

“It is clear the safety and security situation in the metro is now one of the most pressing issues affecting communities and business.

“Absolute urgency and focus need to be deployed by the various law enforcement authorities/role-players to address the very serious safety and security crisis. Vigorous law enforcement is required, along with a much more proactive approach to rein in crime at all levels, from the smallest transgressions through to serious crimes like murder, rape, kidnappings and hijackings.

“Immediate actions in the metro must include the deployment of visible policing through the allocation of more police members and resources to SAPS, and a plan of action to get the NMB metro police fully operational to ensure that bylaws are fully and effectively enforced.

“Additionally, regular maintenance needs to be in place to ensure that vehicles and other tools used by the various authorities in support of crime fighting and prevention work are fully operational at all times and are not standing idle.

“We need new investment in order to create employment, but investors will not come to countries and cities where it is not safe for their employees to live and their businesses to operate. Tourism is also negatively impacted by crime.

“Urgency now needs to be deployed in implementing solutions to address the unacceptably high crime levels. Along with this, strong enforcement of the law is required to protect citizens and visitors.”

Read more: Police commissioner’s shocking admission as Nelson Mandela Bay buckles under violent crime

‘Weekly crime-fighting operations’

Following a complaint by the metro’s religious leaders to President Cyril Ramaphosa, Executive Mayor Babalwa Lobishe said: “The metro police, together with other law enforcement agencies, conduct various operations on a weekly basis to curb the scourge of lawlessness in the metro.”

Read more: Church leaders urge radical change in Nelson Mandela Bay’s governance ahead of local elections

The operations range from roadblocks and vehicle checkpoints, drunken driving operations, stop and search operations and liquor compliance operations.

Read more: Mayor upbeat about Nelson Mandela Bay crime plan – despite admission that there’s no money

Lobishe said, “A cooperative agreement was signed between the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality and the South African Police Service in September 2024 to formalise the sharing of resources.

“This initiative aims at intensifying a collaborative effort in the fight against crime and other related offences. Currently, joint weekly meetings are held between the SAPS and metro police to analyse crime patterns in order to focus on an effective response to address the identified hotspot areas.”

While Lawu admitted that their procurement processes had hit a snag, Lobishe wrote to Ramaphosa: “The revival of technology in the form of CCTV cameras is afoot to augment the existing measures to make the metro safe for residents and visitors.”

In a recent media statement, Deputy Executive Mayor Gary van Niekerk also said the city was “investing in technology” to fight crime.

Cooperation agreements 

The efficacy of the resource-sharing agreement signed between the metro and the SAPS has come under scrutiny in Parliament.

The Acting Minister of Police, Feroz Cachalia, said in a written answer to a parliamentary question that, “Cooperation agreements have been signed by the SAPS, the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service, departments of community safety, with the six metropolitan municipalities: Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay, eThekwini, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane. The objective of the cooperation agreements is to encourage joint action on issues of safety and security in metros, including gender-based violence.”

Earlier this year, the metro’s police commissioner, Major General Vuyisile Ncata, told a protesting crowd in Kariega that there was not enough money to implement the cooperation agreement.

Read more: Hundreds of crime victims and community leaders turn up to speak to Minister Mchunu

Ncata told the crowd that “a lack of resources” was hampering the implementation of the agreement.  This included a “lack of boots on the ground”. DM