By Nangamso Mabindla
7 July 2004

AWARDS keep heading Buffalo City's way: the latest, from the Institute of Local Government Management (ILGM), acknowledges the City for a successful conference it hosted in East London in June.

The topic was management structures in local government.

The award was formally presented to Buffalo City's executive mayor, Sindisile Maclean, by the deputy mayor, Des Halley, during a mayoral committee meeting on Tuesday 6 July.

The three-day ILGM conference exposed local-government managers to top national and international practices. The focus was on quality service delivery.

Guests came from as far afield as the United Kingdom and Australia.

Maclean said he was surprised by the City's latest achievement. "We just hosted a conference to the best of our ability; but to receive an award for it underlines the culture of excellence prevalent amongst the City's employees."

He urged the City's officials and councillors to take the recognition seriously.

"We've been winning awards since last year. Now we need to work even harder so that other cities don't catch up with us."

Buffalo City holds the national Vuna Award for being the best-performing municipality, the ANC's ZK Matthews Award for a similar reason and a Clean City Award from the provincial department of economic affairs, environment and tourism.

The mayor, turning his attention to the impact the awards would have on Buffalo City's aspirations of becoming South Africa's sixth metropole, said: "Someone from the national office phoned me asking when were we becoming a metro. I told him we were ready to take that big step," said Maclean.

"It's recognition like this award that accentuates our being ready to become a metro."

He thanked the ILGM for giving the city a chance to host the conference. Maclean said it had had a positive effect on the city's economy and on its belief in its ability to host major conferences.