Acknowledgements

It is indeed an honour to welcome such a broad band of local government practioners. The honour is greater when one welcomes such a gathering under the able leadership of Father Smangaliso Mkatshwa. I have not had this pleasure with him wearing his SALGA hat. So, welcome Sir. I cherish the moment.

I know it is like a homecoming which may generate mixed feelings. Mixed feelings when memories are kindled of imprisonment in those dark struggle days and the frustrating negative exaggerated reports about our province which we believe is a place you can call home.

Especially when the province is portrayed as a corrupt backwater where in nine years of democracy there has been no expansion in economic growth, service delivery or broad-based development.

Chair, that picture is not true. I assure you that the grossly erroneous Sunday news report recently that East London is the worst city to live in is just not true.

Ask Buffalo City's 145 942 electricity account holders and our ratepayers who own nearly R9.5-billion rateable property of which R4,4-billion is residential property.

Ask DaimlerChrysler who will win the bid this month to build the C Class successor. And in so doing, invest another R2-billion in their East London plant to truly make the Eastern Cape the "Detroit belt" of South Africa, assembling more than 40% of the vehicles in the country.

Chair, we meet at a critical moment to reflect on the more than 1 000 days we've been in office and look at our achievements on the ground, measure and evaluate them.

The issues we are being asked to reflect on here today are fundamental to the well being of our cities and towns: pushing back the frontiers of poverty with strategic interventions to create jobs, housing the hundreds of thousands of homeless and people on our waiting list and expanding basic services like water, sanitation and electricity so that we meet our Constitutional obligations.

Then there is the issue too of HIV/Aids engulfing us like a tidal wave amid the clamour of just a plate of food a day.

Chair, I have no doubt you will hear here today varied responses which are the result of our legacies and the responses to tough choices we have had to make in the fact o crippling financial and capacitation constraints.

I and the city manager who will join us later can speak only for 2 400 square kilometers of municipal land that comprises Buffalo City with its 880 000 people of which 24% of the population live in informal settlements and 20% in 300 rural villages.

We have 39 983 registered indigent households and all receive 100% Free Basic Services comprising 6kl water and 50kw/h a month. This accounts for free services to 200 000 people but we still have a long way to go. A total of 21% of our people still need access to water and 39% to RDP-level sanitation despite millions of rands of infrastructure investment.

Chair, I don't know the format yet abut the submissions here to cover the identified topics but for Buffalo City, you can be taken through the numerous programmes, systems, policies and procedures we have adopted and integrated into governance and administrative strategies that energise us for our role as a development agent.

I believe this meeting comes at a time when the local government platform is awash with policy debates that need astute political leadership coupled with sharp administrative and technocratic skills.

On of the policy debates evolves around the IDP and whether city development Strategy (CDS) with its basic tents of good governance, an inclusive and productive city as well as financially sustainable city, is not more appropriate and suitable to our developmental agenda.

Last week we saw the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) raise a host of questions about whether we are making sufficient progress together with an analysis of whether our system is too flawed to expect us to succeed in our onerous task as the shock troops on the ground.

It is in this context we see the importance of this gathering. You are welcome to Buffalo City.

I thank you Sindisile Maclean
EXECUTIVE MAYOR

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