Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and Co-operative Governance Minister, Lechesa Tsenoli, are meeting with the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro leadership in Port Elizabeth to assess the financial status and the stability of the metro.

This after several meetings with senior government officials, including Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe to rescue the embattled municipality from collapse.

Gordhan says: “We are here to generally evaluate the financial health of this metro and its institutional health. We are here to work with you, to build on the successes you have and the good things that are working in this city but equally to understand your challenges better so that we can assist you with those challenges and surely they can’t be about R2 million or R3 million that need to be attended to one way or another.”

Gordhan adds that the Metro is important in growing the province’s economy.

“Nelson Mandela Bay Metro is a very vital city in the province of the Eastern Cape. It’s a metro as you know by definition, it’s a kingpin or a queenpin, it’s key to the economic and social and developmental welfare of both the region that it dominates but also the province more generally as well.”
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