New Eastern Cape economic development, environmental affairs and tourism MEC Mlungisi Mvoko has overturned his department’s landmark 2017 ruling against the metro’s “nonsensical” mega-housing project in the upper reaches of the Baakens River Valley.

Mvoko said the multiple problems with the project detailed by the department – including that it would damage natural flow regulation in the Baakens River, raising the threat of flooding and slashing the capacity of a key green lung – could be overcome...