Nelson Mandela Bay officials ignored two warnings about an expiring fuel contract, resulting in a crisis as the city faced severe flooding and emergency response delays.
On 30 April, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality ran out of fuel after its supply contract expired -- a preventable administrative failure that left the city struggling to respond to emergencies amid severe flooding and without a city manager in place.
At the time, the municipality confirmed that it had depleted its fuel reserves, bringing emergency vehicles and essential service delivery fleets across the metro to a standstill. The disaster response NGO Gift of the Givers bailed the metro out, providing R50,000 for emergency fuel.
Read more Nelson Mandela Bay floods expose infrastructure strain -- 101 complaints logged in three days May 13, 2026 The metro's director of communications, Sithembiso Soyaya, had previously promised, in a written statement on behalf of Mayor Babalwa Lobishe, to keep residents of Nelson Mandela Bay updated on the progress of the fuel contract. That commitment was not fulfilled.
A question submitted by the Civil Society Coalition was also ignored: why were repeated warnings to renew the fuel contract not acted on?
The chairperson of the coalition, Monga Peter, said warnings about the fuel contract's expiration date were repeatedly raised in the metro's Joint Operations Centre, but went unheeded. This, he said,...
