The mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay, Eugene Johnson, was on Wednesday removed from their positions via a motion of no confidence. 

The meeting was called through a motion of exigency by the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), and seconded by the Freedom Front Plus (FF+). 

Sixty-two councillors voted to remove the trio, with 58 against.

This was the third attempt to remove Johnson, who was elected mayor by a one-vote margin over the Democratic Alliance's (DA's) Eastern Cape leader, Nqaba Bhanga.

In December, the FF+ and ACDP lobbied other parties to endorse a motion of no confidence in Johnson, but it never came to fruition.

Johnson was elected as mayor on 22 November as part of the coalition government, which is now in tatters. 

The opposition had been plotting to remove Johnson, and blamed her for the water crisis in the region.

This, despite the fact that the water situation had been present long before the Johnson-led coalition government took over.

On Wednesday, Johnson's party, the African National Congress, and water entity Amatola Water faced a huge backlash after it emerged that a massive water leak, which had been unfixed since November 2021, had lost the metro 1.5-million litres of water a month.

The DA said it discovered the leak at the town's northern areas during an oversight inspection on Tuesday. 

Last week, the party said the municipality had fixed only 18 of the reported 817 leaks – even less than the week before, when only 40 of 1 018 reported leaks were fixed. 

It added that there were nearly 2 000 unattended water leaks in the metro.

In June, Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu stepped in to try to manage the water crisis in Nelson Mandela Bay. 

A Defenders of the People (DOP) councillor, Tukela Zumani, said: "For the DOP, this is nothing to be celebrated. It is the culmination of months of poor service delivery towards the people of the Nelson Mandela Bay. We can only hope and pray that this move will bring the change that we all so desperately need."

Parties expected to be part of a new coalition government are the ACDP, African Independent Congress, Abantu Integrity Movement, DA, FF+, PAC and the UDM.