By Nangamso Mabindla

The national leadership of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) visited the Eastern Cape yesterday to evaluate the progress the region's mayors and municipalities have made on key local government projects, such as HIV/Aids and job creation.

The delegation, which was headed up by SALGA national chairperson Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, looked at progress made on projects such as housing, poverty alleviation, electrification, conditions of service and the elections.

Buffalo City Executive Mayor Sindisile Maclean said the visit had come "at a crucial moment to reflect on more than 1000 days in office and to look at our achievements on the ground, measure and evaluate them."

The issues being asked to reflect on were fundamental to the well being of the country's cities and towns, he said.

"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 basing services like water, sanitation and electricity so that we meet our constitutional obligations."

Councillor Maclean said 24% of Buffalo City's 880 000 residents lived in informal settlements. About 20% or residents lived in 300 rural villages.

"We have 39 983 registered indigent households which all receive free basic services, comprising 6kl water and 50 kw/h of electricity a month." This means about 200 000 people receive free services in the area, although Maclean conceded that there was still a long way to go.

"A total of 21% of the city's people still need access to water and 39% to RDP-level of sanitation despite the millions of rands of infrastructure investment," he said.

The mayor said a recent news report that listed East London as the worst city to live in was "grossly erroneous".

"It is just not true," he said. In support of this statement, Maclean referred to the 145 942 electricity account holders and ratepayers "who own nearly R9, 5-billion rateable property, of which R4,4-billion is residential property".

The mayor said the city would receive a further boost if DaimlerChrysler, which is based in East London, won its bid to manufacture the new-generation C Class.

If the bid were successful, DaimlerChrysler would invest another R2-billion in their East London plant, which is the second largest DaimlerChrysler plant outside Stuttgart, Germany.

"This would make the Eastern Cape the 'Detroit belt' of South Africa, assembling more than 40% of the vehicles in the country."