Lungisa says he’s ready for the Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral chain

ANC NEC member Andile Lungisa wants the Coega Development Corporation (CDC) in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape to report directly to the Nelson Mandela Bay metro and revert to its initial operating mandate — that is, if he takes over as mayor after the local government elections.

Lungisa said many people feared him presiding over a R24-billion institution, and he did not understand why.

He said a limitation for the municipality was that ANC provincial leaders in the Eastern Cape were heavily involved in the City’s affairs.

Addressing the business fraternity on the state of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in the metro at the City Hall in Gqeberha on Thursday, Lungisa said provincial leaders “want imbeciles to lead the metro, people they will bully to do whatever they want. They want people who will first call the province before they take decisions in the municipality.

“We won’t be calling the province for permission on anything.”

Lungisa said that when he took the reins of the metro, it would begin to have a say in the affairs of the Coega CDC. Coega currently accounts to the Eastern Cape provincial government.

“We will first attend [to] the issue of Coega IDZ [Industrial Development Zone]. That piece of land belongs to the municipality; we gave them that land and therefore there’s no way the municipality does not have a say at Coega… Immediately after we take over, the CEO and the board of Coega will account to the municipality and not anywhere else.”

Lungisa said Coega had long moved away from what it had been established for.

“Coega has moved away from its initial mandate, which was to industrialise that land, but presently their focus is on project management. We will fix this after the elections.”

Lungisa is not on the ANC PR (proportional representation) councillor list, despite being voted for by 35 out of the 60 branches and endorsed by communities in ANC wards.

Earlier this month, he filed an urgent high court application against ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula over his removal from the list.

In his founding affidavit, Lungisa says he is not seeking changes to the list already submitted to the Independent Electoral Commission. What he wants, he says, is a declaration that his removal was unlawful in terms of ANC guidelines, and that he remains the ANC’s validly nominated number-one candidate for mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay.

That declaration matters, Lungisa says in his affidavit, because the Municipal Structures Act provides for parties to supplement their lists in certain circumstances after an election.

LOCAL ELECTIONS 2026

Before their court battle, Andile Lungisa warned Mbalula of ‘electoral humiliation’

September 13, 2026

“Even the national leaders are always fearful when my name is mentioned; that is why my name was removed from the list. But my message has always been clear, even at national level, that we only respect the Freedom Charter, which has a clause that says: “People shall govern”, said Lungisa.

He said the people of Nelson Mandela Bay, in terms of the branches, businesses including SMMEs, churches, traditional leaders and sport bodies, had said that no one will undermine that clause, which referred to the will of the people of the region.

“Hence we are saying the people must go and vote for the ANC so that it is in a good position to run the municipality when the results have been declared. The people of Nelson Mandela Bay will have to constitute a government and no one will impose any government on the people,” he said emphatically.

“We’ve had four interventions from the province, and national, and they all have not worked. That’s why the people of the region have spoken through the structures of the ANC and as communities about who they want to be led by.”

‘We’ll expropriate unused buildings’

Lungisa told the SMMEs that when the ANC had a majority government, the municipality would expropriate all dilapidated and unused buildings in ward 5.

“There are more than 70 unused buildings around Central that the municipality will take over, refurbish and use them to revitalise the Central Business Area to attract the youth to live in those buildings and make the area vibrant so it can operate 24 hours daily.”

He said he would implement the B2 nodal project by ensuring the construction of mixed-use housing around Baywest Mall, which would also benefit.

“The townships have the old RDP houses that were built with asbestos. Through SMMEs, we will remove all the asbestos in those houses up to Kariega. We will embark on this early next year because the funding is available at the National Treasury, but there’s no leadership to do this.  You have elected a leadership that can’t even write a letter to unlock the available grant.”

‘Boost for SMMEs’

He said there would be equal opportunities for the SMMEs to do business with the City when he rolls out projects to beautify the townships, northern areas and Kariega.

“We will appoint about four SMMEs per area to keep the townships and other neglected areas clean. This will also require residents to take ownership of this project by cleaning inside their own properties.

“And that’s what we need to do here to turn things around and change the current situation. You can’t have SMMEs who only benefit from temporary cleaning projects towards the end of the year, because that’s the only time the municipality ever does clean-ups. Which means the rest of the year, there are no projects for SMMEs”

Lungisa said the only way to turn things around in the metro was if the ANC won the election in the majority. He said coalitions that included many small parties caused instability. DM