POLITICAL DRAMA: I told Nelson Mandela Bay mayor I have no confidence in her — Khusta Jack

In an interview on the eve of his 68th birthday, veteran activist and politician Khusta Jack explained why he left the Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral committee.

At the end of March, when two motions of no confidence were brought against Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Babalwa Lobishe, veteran politician and struggle activist Khusta Jack told Lobishe, during a dramatic meeting, that he would not be defending her.

“I wanted to say a lot at that meeting, but my colleagues in the ANC persuaded me otherwise. She threatened to fire me then. But I think she forgot,” he said over the weekend.

The two motions to remove Lobishe were unsuccessful – Jack was not present during the voting.

Jack, who celebrated his 68th birthday on Sunday, discussed his reasons for resigning as the metro’s mayoral committee member for corporate services earlier in the week. He holds the only seat won by his party, Abantu Integrity Movement, in the 2021 local government elections.

Jack said he believed that “outside forces” were running Nelson Mandela Bay, and Lobishe was simply carrying out instructions. He said decisions were made without robust, in-depth and intellectual discussion of the serious issues facing the metro.

Lobishe hit back over the weekend, saying that Jack resigned as she was about to fire him for underperformance.

She said he had convened a committee to deal with the state of depots across the city to ensure that workers actually went to work, a week after he was appointed, but he failed to take that item to council; failed to take a workplace skills item to council; and failed to call a session for all councillors to deal with the municipality’s organisational structure.

She said officials in his directorate had been complaining that he did not attend the committee’s preliminary meetings, and that he was not politically driving the directorate.

“Which means what we resolve in the government of local unity doesn’t find expression in his directorate,” she said.

Jack said their coalition agreement determined that the only reason the mayor could dismiss an MMC was for underperformance. “That is why she is using this as a reason. It is bizarre – that if a person told the mayor that he has lost all confidence in her, as I did, the mayor should have fired me on the spot,” he said.

“We could not focus on anything,” he said. “She was just running around everywhere having pictures taken of herself.”

Jack said he would not deny that there were serious problems in his directorate.

But he said that the main reason she used for her threats to fire him was that she believed he