Nelson Mandela Bay Mayor Retief Odendaal is not concerned about the motion of no confidence filed against him.

Odendaal will be facing the motion on May 8 following his announcement, last week, of the suspension of several officials in the City’s electricity and energy department.

The motion against Odendaal was instigated by 62 councillors from the African National Congress, Economic Freedom Fighters, and Northern Alliance.

According to Odendaal, the cautionary suspensions of the officials were made amid a probe into fraud and corruption following an explosion at a substation in the Coega Special Economic Zone, which is estimated to cost about R100-million in repairs.

“Since the suspension was issued, municipal workers faced intimidation from some members of the opposition parties. This has further caused suspension on service delivery as municipal workers are afraid to deliver services, however, investigations on the intimidations are also being conducted,” said Odendaal.

He said instability in the metro was "sabotage" aimed at toppling the ten-party coalition government currently ruling the municipality.

“This is the biggest coalition that has ever happened in the country and it is expected for problems and not always plain sailing. However, I am not concerned of the motion filed against me as I am sure it will not see the light of day. We had discussions with all the parties within our coalition and we are comfortable that it is business as usual,” he said.

Odendaal disclosed that the municipality was on the brink of uncovering what he declared to be one of the biggest corruption networks in the administration to date which has potentially syphoned millions of rands from city coffers over the last couple of years.

He said that the initial investigation by internal auditors had been handed over to the Hawks and the Special Investigating Unit for further investigation.

“Due to the seriousness of the matter I am anticipating some pushback and we can potentially expect some electricity outages. We apologise for the warfare that is aimed to be internal but now affected our people...  I want to assure residents, however, that we have put contingency measures in place. Together with the MMC for Electricity and Energy, Councillor Lance Grootboom, our priority remains service delivery,” Odendaal said.