PORT ELIZABETH - MAYOR DANNY JORDAAN IS "THE REAL DEAL" ASSURES SPORTS MINISTER FIKILE MBALULA

African National Congress mayoral candidate Danny Jordaan is the real deal, according to Sports and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula.

"The ANC has decided to take decisive action in the metro, to say we are not going to give you second hand, fake or plastic. We will give you the real deal. Your own son, baptised here in revolutionary fires," Mbalula said on Thursday.

Mbalula was addressing an interactive session between Jordaan and the progressive professionals' forum in Nelson Mandela Bay, where the mayor outlined some of the progress he had made in the year he had been in the job.

Mbalula, also the ANC's head of elections, sang Jordaan's praises at the meeting, which was attended by hundreds of young professions who were urged to vote for the ANC.

The minister said Jordaan was someone who grew up amongst them and knew the suffering of the people in the area.

'Administrator par excellence'

"Not a farmworker, nor a farm owner. A graduate not from the university of wisdom but with a sound academic record," he said.

He was not an unknown, but an "administrator par excellence in sport", who was given the accolade of being called a doctor.

"He is the mayoral candidate, an individual who has, in a very short space of time, put this metro into a very sound financial footing."

Under Jordaan, the Metro did not become bankrupt, nor did it have a shortfall, Mbalula said.

In fact, he continued, there was a surplus.

"We talk about the future and the present because of what he has started in a very short space of time. It shows that we are serious about Nelson Mandela Bay," he said.

VIA - news24.com