Windy, armpit, ghost on the coast, backwater – Nelson Mandela Bay has had many insults thrown at it over the years, and yet this metro remains a desirable place to live and do business.
That’s not to pretend there are no downsides, just as there are in other metros, cities and towns in South Africa.
While we battle with municipal service delivery, infrastructure challenges, logistics inefficiencies, dilapidated public facilities and rising crime, we also enjoy a coastal lifestyle with excellent beaches, abundant natural amenities and scenery, clean air, more than 300 days of sunshine a year – the envy of many other city-dwellers both locally and globally.
Add to that a lively food and entertainment scene, good schools, reasonable property prices, a world-class stadium, a plethora of sporting venues and events, vibrant retail and tourism sectors, nature reserves and local tourism options on our doorstep.
The compact size of the metro makes for ease of getting around in terms of distances and time spent in traffic, and less over-crowding than more sprawling metros with greater population density.
We have the amenities of a large commercial and manufacturing centre, within a city of manageable size, large enough to compete, yet small enough for networking, personal connections and our renowned friendliness.
We have a solid base of manufacturing skills, deep value chains, ample natural resources for renewable energy, two ports including SA’s deepest deepwater port, a reasonably well-connected airport, world-class technology and innovation-driven companies.
We have great people – can-do attitudes, friendly, hospitable and helpful, and a dynamic business community that believes in the future of the Bay and is willing to put competitive interests aside and get involved in collaborating to fix what’s broken.
What we are not good at, though, is standing up for ourselves.
We allow others to talk the Bay down, we accept their negative comments and labels, and we “comply” rather than taking a more balanced view where we relay the positive facts too.
We tell business colleagues, friends and family all the bad news; we encourage them not to visit the Bay.
For instance, we accept the label of “Windy City”, but when you take Nelson Mandela Bay as a whole, we are not the windiest city or place in SA, our local Weather Guru Garth Sampson points out.
On average wind speeds and hours of wind, we are beaten by Cape St Francis and Cape Point – the windiest town and place in SA, respectively. Anyone who has visited Strand or Gordon’s Bay in the Western Cape, or clung onto lampposts in a howling south-easter on Cape Town’s foreshore, will tell you – “you people in the Bay don’t know what wind is!”
In addition to negative nicknames, we also accept bad service, rather than demanding that we be treated on an equal footing to other metros and cities.
The impact of negative attitudes towards the Bay was brought home in a recent meeting with a global e-hailing service.
Over recent months, we have received growing feedback from our members and stakeholders expressing concern about the quality of e-hailing services in the metro – poor vehicle quality (broken lights, doors and safety belts, safety-critical mirrors missing), even doubts as to roadworthiness and drivers’ licences and identity, dirty vehicles, poor driver attitudes, raising concerns for both personal and traffic/vehicle safety.
The overall impression is that the quality of e-hailing services available in the Bay falls far short compared with other metros across the country and globally, and that they do not meet the standards set by the e-hailing platforms themselves.
Residents and visitors to our metro deserve to have access to safe, clean and professional transport services.
For many visitors, their first experience of Nelson Mandela Bay begins with a trip from the airport, and this initial interaction often forms a lasting impression of our city. Unfair as that is, it is reality.
And yet, when we tackled one of these e-hailing operators on their poor service locally, we were dismissed with a comment that “this is a poor city – you get the service you can afford”.
That is completely unacceptable.
And it is by no means the only negative attitude we have encountered, with suggestions that we somehow deserve less from national service providers and businesses operating in the Bay.
We have asked Chamber members to complete a survey on their views on the cleanliness, safety, driver behaviour, and overall quality of the e-hailing service in the Bay, as well as what additional services businesspeople would like to see introduced here.
We will be taking this forward, to lobby for better quality and service.
We also encourage all e-hailing customers to report issues on the relevant app – if we all raise our voices, we can bring about improvements.
The Business Chamber is not letting it stand there, and we are actively taking on poor service provided to local customers – in public transport, and beyond.
Additionally, if we care about and want to elevate “Brand Nelson Mandela Bay” and restore pride in our metro, we must demonstrate that pride ourselves.
Shifting negative perceptions of our metro starts with us – taking pride, elevating the positives, taking action rather than complaining, and demanding the service we deserve.
Denise van Huyssteen is Chief Executive Officer of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber.