Dear All,
RE: A CALL TO ACTION
1. This is an open letter addressed to all those who still have hope for a brighter, bolder future for our City.
2. Like so many of you, we experience the daily realities of unreliable services, escalating costs, and lost opportunities that affect families, livelihoods, and our collective prosperity. This letter reflects our conviction, and that of countless others, that we must act together to secure a viable future for Nelson Mandela Bay.
3. This is not about partisan blame or finger-pointing. It is about rising together, harnessing our collective strength, and channelling our shared vision into real, lasting change.
4. Close your eyes and imagine a Gqeberha where streets are illuminated by steady, reliable lights, where businesses thrive free from the shadow of power outages or crippling costs. Picture clean water flowing freely from every tap, our beaches and oceans restored as sanctuaries of pride and vitality, and external investors returning to create thousands of new jobs that lift families out of hardship and despair.
5. This is a future we can forge into existence, but only through genuine unity and unrelenting collective action.
6. Despite the dedication of many honest municipal workers and some principled public representatives, our City sits on the edge of irreversible decline. Good intentions and isolated efforts cannot withstand systemic collapse.
7. Words of complaint are no longer sufficient. Half-measures have failed us, and the time has come to move beyond reliance on politicians and municipal leaders alone.
8. For far too long we have endured as our municipality has been hollowed out by neglect, incompetence, and a deeply entrenched culture of corruption and impunity.
9. A municipality should serve as the steadfast guardian of our shared local world, entrusted with delivering water, electricity, sanitation, safety, and well-maintained roads, all with unwavering integrity and meaningful public participation. Yet, when those entrusted with power fail in their duty, the Constitution restores ultimate authority to its rightful source: us, the people.
10. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It demands active participation in our society, the exercise of our hard-earned constitutional rights, and the courage to stand up for ourselves and our communities when systems falter.
11. This is a call to join a rapidly growing, fiercely non-partisan alliance of residents, business owners, community leaders, professionals, and ordinary citizens from every background, faith, language, and perspective. Let us unite behind one unbreakable purpose: to rescue and rebuild Gqeberha.
12. If you are ready to stand up, be counted, and contribute to tangible progress, please send your name and contact details to metro@kaplans.co.za. By doing so, you will be included in upcoming strategy sessions, collaborative meetings, and coordinated initiatives.
13. We must declare, in unity, that the future of Nelson Mandela Bay will no longer be determined in backrooms or ineffective council chambers. It will be shaped by the people, together, and in the light of day.
Yours faithfully,
Kyle Vermooten
HEAD OF LITIGATION – KAPLAN BLUMBERG
Editor: Get involved by supporting the Nelson Mandela Bay Civil Service Coalition or the Nelson Mandela Bay Ratepayers Association. Drop your concerns in the NMBCSC Forum and get active.
To the Businesses and Residents of Gqeberha,
I have read the above Open Letter with deep reflection. It captures what so many of us feel daily, (frustration, fatigue and concern for the direction of our city). But more importantly, it captures something else, a refusal to give up…..
Yes, we see the unreliable services.
Yes, we experience the rising costs.
Yes, we feel the erosion of trust.
But beneath that frustration lies something powerful, (a community that still cares).
Gqeberha is not broken because its people are broken. It is struggling because systems have faltered. When systems falter, history shows that communities either decline, or they reorganise.
Let’s choose to re-organise.
The future of Nelson Mandela Bay will not be secured by complaint alone. Nor will it be secured by waiting for rescue from political structures that have repeatedly under-delivered. The responsibility now rests with those who are willing to build, (practically, lawfully and together in unity.
If we want:
The truth is this, real sovereignty begins with productivity. When communities produce what they consume, when skills are mobilised, when residents collaborate rather than fragment, power shifts naturally. Not through confrontation. Not through chaos. But through capacity and coherence.
Gqeberha has:
What we have not yet done is align that capacity in a structured way.
Now is the moment.
We support a non-partisan alliance.
We support transparent civic engagement.
We support holding leadership accountable.
But we also recognise that accountability alone is not enough.
We need to build parallel strength:
This is not about rebellion.
This is not about blame.
This is about maturity.
Democracy is not passive. It is participatory.
Civic pride is not sentimental. It is practical.
We need to move from:
Complaint → Coordination
Anger → Architecture
Frustration → Framework
Dependency → Productivity
The above open letter asks us to stand up. Standing up does not mean shouting louder. It means building stronger. If we unite not merely around opposition, but around structured creation, Gqeberha can become an example, (not of collapse, but of renewal).
The choice before us is not political. It is civilisational. Do we retreat into division and despair? As described here 👉 DIVIDE & RULE https://old.bitchute.com/video/CBCgU8WnoceJ/ or do we rise into disciplined, organised, constructive action?
Let this moment mark the beginning of a new chapter, one defined not by decline, but by determination.
The future of Nelson Mandela Bay will not be decided in backrooms. It will be shaped by those who are willing to do the work, (together, transparently, and lawfully).
Let us be those people. For our families. For our businesses. For our children. For our city. Gqeberha is worth rebuilding and we are capable of doing it.
Some resources to consider:
https://www.micronation.world/
https://globalfamilygroup.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV0jC9fvVK0&t=8s | https://www.onesmalltown.org/landing_page.php
https://www.community-exchange.org/home/
https://sovereigntybegins.substack.com/p/the-dawn-of-a-heart-led-pulse-within