By Nangamso Mabindla
25 April 2005

THE BUFFALO City Municipality has focused on the region's disabled community with the launch of the City's Disability Forum in East London on Friday, 22 April.

Through the forum, the municipality aims to include disabled people in the City's development programmes. Speaking at the launch, Mayor Sindisile Maclean said, "The launch follows the government's political commitment to work closely with the people of South Africa."

For the government to keep up with its slogan, "Nothing for us without us", local government, as the closest tier of government to citizens, needed to make sure that people felt they were part of development programmes.

"Disabled people need actively to take part in our programmes. This forum will give them a good chance to participate in government programmes like the Integrated Development Plan," Maclean said.

Mzolisi ka-Ntoni, the secretary-general of Disabled People of South Africa, was happy the disabled people of Buffalo City would now have a voice when it came to decision making in the City.

"By launching the forum the City has shown that it recognises the role of disabled people in local government. It also shows the advancement of the government's programme of transformation."

He said the City's disabled citizens needed to understand the forum's role, while the forum also needed to have a clear plan of action and to identify priority issues.

"Most of all we hope that through this forum disabled people will have meaningful participation in developmental local government," he said.