The African National Congress (ANC) will not lose the tightly-contested Nelson Mandela Bay Metro to the Democratic Alliance, Mayor Danny Jordaan vowed on Friday.

“Can we win the metro? Of course we will. The ANC will win this metro. The ANC cannot lose the metro unless it defeats itself. It cannot lose the metro and there is no doubt about it,” Jordaan told reporters in Port Elizabeth.

Jordaan narrated to journalists how he has handled the beleaguered metro since he was appointed to the mayoral post 10 months ago.

“We have death with corruption in this metro. We have removed almost 29 of our people in the administration. The immediate impact we could see was the accelerated delivery of housing. In this short space of ten months, we have delivered more houses than many years before,” said Jordaan.

“We have travelled a journey of ten months and what has been achieved here is nothing short of a miracle. It is not because of us as individuals but is because of the ANC.”

Jordaan said financially, the metro was now in a good space.

“We are financially sound and stable. When we came in May last year, this metro was going to table a budget before its council, which reflected a deficit of R400-million. The intention was to have that deficit of R400-million over three years, in other words a total deficit of R1,2-billion. We said no, we cannot take that budget to council,” said Jordaan.

“We reworked that budget and presented a budget to council with a small surplus of R12-million. In the end it was R45-million. One item we cut was an allocation in that budget of R250-million for international travel to conferences. I drew a line on it and said this is now zero.”

Senior ANC officials have been canvassing for support in the Eastern Cape province, ahead of the party’s local government elections manifesto launch scheduled for Saturday in Nelson Mandela Bay.

The manifesto launch is set to take place from 10am with interfaith prayers, followed by messages of support from the SA Communist Party, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco). Zuma, the President of the ANC, is expected to speak at 11am.