By Executive Mayor Sindisile Maclean at the Special City Council Meeting on 27th May 2005.

MADAM SPEAKER….I rise to table the R1,8 billion 2005-2006 budget before this House.

It has become traditional in our short five-year term that in doing so, I seek your indulgence to present my State of the City Address. It is my final one before the elections.

I will merely give the political imperatives in the face of the challenges and constraints as well as the trade off to balance this budget.

Councilor Vuyo Mosana and Chief Financial Officer Brian Shepherd will deal with the technical nuts and bolts and its compliance and organic links to our guiding management tool, the Integrated Development Plan (IDP).

In everything we do, I want to re-emphasise the bedrock of our inspiration for the past 50 years: the Freedom Charter, especially its opening line advice which resonates to underwrite our democracy today…no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people".

Under the leadership of the Movement which deployed me here, the African National Congress, the policies and principles of the Freedom Charter will continue to be our guide and beacon in a non-racial, progressive, democratic and united country.

I move from the premise that the City belongs to all our children, black and white. Whatever we have done and will be doing must be an investment in their future. This is why I have adopted the slogan this year:

This slogan indicates that we have arrived at a decisive juncture in our developmental journey and we pause to reflect and ask some incisive questions while laying the foundation for a better tomorrow.

That foundation must be based on the outcomes of the possible policy permutations for the next five years. This House must lay down, own, accept and take responsibility for that foundation. It is our legacy to the future of our children.

Today, Madam Speaker, I make bold to say that what we leave is not what we found. It is said that in 2000 we arrived at the end of the beginning, saddled with a mammoth task to amalgamate three disparate areas with 300 underdeveloped villages displaying indicators of acute poverty and joblessness. And an administrative machine not designed for developmental local government.

We had to reengineer an apartheid planner's nightmare into a humane inclusive and productive City that coheres as a united financially stable and well-governed City legally compliant with the five Acts which underpin developmental local government.

Essentially, developmental local government happens when a local authority determines and influences the direction and pace of economic development without upsetting the social development investment balance.

To balance economic and social expenditure in the budget is crucial and you need trade offs. It is not only about lengthening the social grant and subsidy queues at the expense of economic investment. Equally, the reverse is not true. We must have equilibrium.

But first we had to restructure our institutional vehicle with an aligned administrative developmental agenda to drive our ambitious political programme. It is an alignment with inherent tensions throughout the world. We are no different.

Earlier this year, I took my senior political leadership on a lekgotla where the political-administrative interface tension was a recurring theme and I remember a quote that emerged there:

"It is a mistake to think of public authorities as neutral administrative machines which can be driven in any direction once you own the keys"
Patrick Fitzgerald 1994

Some of our institutional problems of implementation weaknesses highlighted were:

• Difficulties in inter-governmental cooperation;
• Unrealistic expectations;
• A lack of internal cohesion;
• Slow implementation of performance management;
• Lack of resources;
• Lack of institutional capacity to address both project delivery at scale and to achieve expenditure levels required;
• The need to comply with a reduction in the wage bill resulting in non-filling of vacancies and resultant incapacity; and
• Lack of a coherent and clear service delivery strategy.

I am open about these views because I believe they are mere teething problems in the approach to decision-making and executive management processes rather than a deep seated structural problem in the way the institution is run.

It is necessary to deal with some of the underlying issues to avoid frustration levels building up. The process has begun and I have no doubt we have a winning combination which can successfully manage tensions. We have to do so if we want to sustain our municipality's success.

In dealing with these maters, we sought strategic sustenance from Nobel laureate Amartya Sen who says "development requires the removal of major sources of un-freedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over activity of repressive states".

Our political leaders faced enormous challenges. We had to oversee the day-to-day functions and remain responsive to the needs of our formerly marginalized people as well as the need to sustain and invest in infrastructure to make our City a viable investment destination where jobs will be created and poverty alleviated.

Our administrative leaders too face mammoth challenges.

By 2003, they were still battling with the establishment phase, trying to change outdated paper-based systems with modernized IT systems to improve the turnaround time in our responsiveness to our people. We had to have greater data accessibility and reliability and we underwent a business process reengineering.

We placed a greater focus on employee training and development to spur transformation that created fear and uncertainty among staff.

There was the general joke even among our own that the last person to leave the City must turn out the lights and we had to fight off allegations of bankruptcy. We pursued proper budgeting, accounting, borrowing, expenditure control, billings and revenue collection to interpret, understand, formulate and implement new systems.

We had to transform financial management, look at risk resource and information management for efficiency, effectiveness and economic savings.

We had to analyse our holistic financial status and our unacceptable creditworthiness, our liquidity, leverage and profitability with the critical issues of credit control, cash flow, tariff review and risk analysis and how to make productive use of our assets.

Together with the political leadership, the institution survived a severe financial crisis even though today we are incongruously lumped with municipalities that are financially distressed and are part of a two-year rescue plan called Project Consolidate.

Yes we have come through a challenging stretch since 2001.

At the time, income poverty is said to have grown although asset poverty is decreasing; deepening wealth divisions are increasing dependency with the South African Cities Network research telling us we had the highest geni co-efficient of 0,79 among the nine cities; 53 000 households told us in 2001 they had no income and we are now budgeting on the basis that 134 373 or 70% of our households are classified indigents earning less than R1 500 a month, only 63% of our families had formal shelter, transport costs have doubled between 1990 to 2002 and 43,1% say they have no access to banking facilities (before mzansi) with only 5,5% having home loans.

Despite these random constraints we had a dramatic financial turnaround engineered by our Chief Financial Officer and overseered by our City Manager.

Today we are cited in the corridors of power as an example of municipal finance best practice and other municipalities are learning from our experiences. Next week I am sending a 24-person team to Umthata following a request from the King Sabata Dalinyebo Municipality for assistance.

Certainly, Madam Chair, what we leave today is not what we found.

Finance is our flagship and we reached some commanding heights as a Vuna Award winner for municipal excellence in governance. We have a five-year financial viability and sustainability plan in place. It includes various financial policies and procedures.

This year we received an unqualified audit. National Treasury awarded us a R130 million Restructuring Grant and directed the World Bank's municipal finance arm to our doors with innovative partnership plans for the future. Watch this space.

However, it is often said the more things change, the more things seem to remain the same. Cynics will tell you nothing has changed in Buffalo City. They will tell you about dirty streets despite the R17 million we have budgeted for cleanliness and despite the 300 000 tons of litter we cart away a year.

We cannot be expected to eliminate poverty and joblessness overnight or retard its inexplicable countrywide growth amid some confusing positive consumer-led growth indicators whose sustainability is consistently questioned.

Indicators can be confusing. How does a retail outlet like Edgars report an 83% profit to over R1 billion and furniture outlets like Lewis and Joshua Door record a 43% increase on the back of white goods for new houses when we are talking such dire poverty and a jobless rate of over 30%?

It is indeed confusing and we know that somewhere out there, our successes are hidden beyond the sea of poverty that shapes the enormous challenges we still face.

Yes we cannot bring the type of visible change where we turn Mdantsane into Bunker's Hill or replicate the King CBD in Dimbaza overnight.

Reeston may appear to be our only major viable attempt to address our existing 75 000 unit housing backlog with an implementation programme over the next 10 years to deliver 113 295 units which includes Peoples Housing Projects, social housing and private developments.

We may seem trapped in an apartheid development framework as we try to de-densify Duncan Village by relocating people away from our economic hubs, but we have in fact made progress.

Income poverty obfuscates the asset gains our people have recorded, as well as the caring social net we have created.

Our social wage is R196,26 a month for every family with a total gross household income of less than R1 560. All 40 000 registered indigents receive our Free Basic Services of 20kl of water and 50kw/h of electricity and are left with only R18,58 to pay on a monthly bill of R214,84.

The demographics of downtown East London are changing - thanks to the property acquisition strategy of Fort Hare University that has identified the City as its growth and expansion node for most of its projected R700 million investment plans over 10 years.

Despite the many co-ordination and integration challenges we face as one of the three spheres of government, we have made considerable progress since our election some 1 533 days ago today.

Other service delivery implementation has continued apace although we still have some 36% of our more than 800 000 people without basic services. Our tax base does not allow us to extend some services under our social services umbrella to all our households.

This budget sees us apportioning R33m for water, R123,6 sanitation, roads and works R13,9m, housing R99m, electricity R21,4m and public safety R33m.

Essentially, we have not been able to extend our footprint of service delivery to include rural areas. A prime example is that we do not provide refuse removal in rural areas. However, an Integrated Waste Management Plan has been approved that includes a low-level of service in the rural areas. The indigent refuse budget has gone up from R6,2m to R22m.

Analysts tell us our service delivery is not sufficiently coordinated and integrated and that our ability to spend on infrastructure investment is not what it should despite the fact we were the best in the Eastern Cape in spending our Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG).

Our system is maturing but there are still areas that need attention and our ability to spend, I believe, is due largely to lack of Project Management Skills.

Our grant funding is also limited and at times we are faced with unrealistic service level demands. We have an enabling environment that promotes transformation but there are no quick fix solutions to shifting paradigms or for building capacity.

We must not underestimate the amount of time and effort it takes to plan properly, develop and build an entity which not only services immediate contractual obligations, but which also aims to be sustainable and make an impact over a lifetime.

This is our greatest revenue generator. It accounts for R386,5m of our income. In the next financial year it will account for R413,4m and by 2007 it will account for R442,9m. We spend 11% of our budget on electricity maintenance and we connected 2 698 low-income houses this financial year.

But REDS, designed to rationalize the supply of the R25 billion industry, is expected by 2007. We will be part of REDS 3 based in Port Elizabeth. We will have given up our more than R2 billion assets and we will receive dividends from our shares in the REDS.

We had problems with electricity in our audit. The Auditor General's report again listed a significant amount of electricity lost in the system.

We lost 156 324 217 units in distribution during the financial year. It represented a 12% loss of units purchased and the norm is 8%. A 4% difference costs R16 772 234. The financial lost based on units purchased was R25,13m.

The Auditor General blamed the loss partly on inadequate monitoring. He recommended closer monitoring and wanted our losses investigated and minimized. This was a challenge taken up by our engineering section.

Electricity theft too is costing us dearly. It is under the heading of non-technical losses. It comprises theft, illegal connections, wrongly calibrated meters and meter tampering and we only appeal to the civic consciousness of our people to desist from such economic sabotage and to report it.

Our national water policy states: "There is increasing understanding internationally that water resources can be successfully managed only if the natural, social, economic and political environments in which water occurs and is used are taken fully into account.

The Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP) promises access to water for all by 2008 and proper sanitation by 2010. More than 36% are still without.

Water problems are mainly an institutional problem reflecting lack of human resource capital, capacity, finance and political will to manage the resource.

Losses too are high in both developed and under developed. The experts tell us problems are normally poor operations or deferred maintenance, budgetary constraints, lack of cost recovery mechanisms, weak governance and deficient institutional frameworks.

Duncan Village C section is a pathetic case in point, environmentally inhospitable. There are 140 clustered public toilets for a population of some 17 000 people giving 120 people per toilet. It leads to broken and blocked pipes and the infrastructure cannot take the load.

The Auditor General report says we have significant Unaccounted for Water losses (UFW). It is water collected and put into the system but is not accounted for. It results from leaks, theft, meter under registration and meter reading errors and malpractices. It is expressed as a percentage of water produced.

In simple terms it is money lost. There are two categories of losses: administrative loss and technical loss. In the 03-04 financial year, we lost R36,6 million and in the previous year R33,86 million. It represents 25 299 837 units and the previous one was 23 412 180 units. The % increase in a year was from 34% to 44% and the international norm is 25%. R15,3m is considered above the norm.

The cause of the loss was that consumers were not being billed or being billed incorrectly while there are excessive losses due to leaks. We are looking at a water management system and we have appointed contractors to look at our losses. We are establishing a water loss unit. We have to replace midblock mains and ageing infrastructure. We have to install meters and China has donated 27 000 euros worth of meters.

Both the electricity and water losses cost us dearly but we are working on it, together with the reduction in cutting our staff costs from 35,37% of our budget to 30% by 2007 as required by National Treasury. It is 34,13% of total income at present, the price we are paying for a reengineered vehicle to confront a transformation process classified as one of the most difficult in the world.

If these losses can be rectified, it will go a long way to helping us overcome the serious sanitation challenges we face where R200 million is needed to overcome the strain on the system. The strain can cause great anxiety about spillage into our rivers.

However, we must remember that a report on service delivery is multi-faceted: some can become legalistic or technical. In others, there can be visible delivery.

We have embraced the concept of preserving our environment for our children through strategic planning. We have completed an Integrated Waste Management Plan, the State of the Environment Report, the State of the Coastal Zone Report and we are in the process of completing an Integrated Environmental Management Plan and a Coastal Zone Management Plan.

These plans all provide guidance and determine how we fulfill our responsibility to managing and protecting our environment. The framework for this protection is located in the Spatial Development Framework (SDF) which indicates which natural resources and environmentally sensitive areas are to be protected and not used for any development.

In the face of all this, Madam Speaker, we stand here today, to be evaluated by our peers and co-governors and the various organisations that make up civil society: our spiritual leaders, sport bodies, tertiary educationists, business professionals, labour unions , NGOs and CBOs and the rest of the private sector.

We want them to ask the questions and to hold us to account:

Is this budget made up of 77% operating expenses and R424,84 million capital expenditure propelling our City forward effectively, efficiently and economically through professionally transformed urban governance?

By raising tariffs 6,5%, are we caring for our poor, are we fair to those who can afford it, and does it enable us to maintain, extend and sustain financially viable services that make us an investment-friendly City?

Is our budget a development tool organically linked to a people-driven IDP with all the built-in mechanisms for monitoring, measurement and evaluation?

I believe we are enabling you to qualitatively measure and robustly assess us by looking at our joint submissions on how we fared in our mandate to turn the City 360 degrees from the incalculable harm of our sad racial past; to attack the entrenched poverty and joblessness; to transform and confront our challenging political economy and indeed, to create a better life for all.

In his State of the Nation Address this year, President Thabo Mbeki announced a review of services as part of government's programme of action.

The review will make proposals, particularly on the capacity of the implementing agents, skill and competence within the public service, alignment of planning and implementation and issues pertaining to the mobilization of public service to speed up social transformation.

It will revamp the bureaucracy to improve capacity and take the country on a higher trajectory of growth and development and improve the State's ability to deliver.

I mention this because as the sphere in the frontline of delivery, we are very much in the limelight with visible demonstrations of impatience and anger over slow delivery, disruptive phenomena which are creeping into the Eastern Cape from the Free State.

Buffalo City has thankfully not been affected dramatically by this phase of the burning tyre and blockade form of protest largely because of our systemic stability and because our understanding masses have been somewhat adequately consulted.

We have based our community participation programmes on the realization that power exists inside and outside the formal authority of government and that constructive dialogue is essential in democratic decision-making. Space must, however, always be reserved for societal miscreants who stray from the path of reason.

Community participation is our strong point. We held 31 consensus-seeking budget-IDP public hearings over 18 days in April over and above the heavy reliance we place on consolidating participatory governance through our Ward Committees, the range of business and sector forums we host.

Our Ward surveys, done as part of our IDP Review annually, tell us our people's priorities. This year the surveys told us that roads were a priority and spoke to the need of our people to be mobile, a good indicator in economic analysis.

The highest number of questions at our public hearings this year was for community facilities (19%) followed by houses and land (15%), roads and transport (13%) and communication (10%).

We have also established an Integrated Call Centre to improve relations with communities. It is proving another good tool to deepen vital community interaction. We have also received three Community Development Workers (CDWs) who report to the Director in my Office.

We are looking at smoother integrated and rapid information output so that communication with our constituencies is strategic and informative and not necessarily reactive to an outside media agenda.

The latest 31 IDP-Budget meetings took us to the heart of Buffalo City's problems and to the bottom of discriminatory delivery of services that have been highlighted in our research for the new Property Rates Act still to be implemented.

Some meetings were held in areas where there are hardly toilet facilities or electricity. Others in comfortable First World surroundings with the paradox of shocking conditions a stone's throw away in former native locations which still exist shamefully today, 11 years into freedom.

As I said earlier, in parts of Duncan Village, 120 people share a single public toilet and it is this social exclusion that tests Comrades' patience and remains the fault line for civic upheavals.

Inequality of access to services prompts people to want to embrace inappropriate policies. Economists tells us there are pareto efficient policies which say no one can be made better off without someone being made worst off.

Pareto dominant policies make everybody better off, which is what we propose and pareto inferior policies make everyone worst off, something we have to avoid at all costs.

Comrades and colleagues, we have to make trade offs in our conscious policy choices that are governed by what happens in the broader arena and by the dynamics on the ground.

Essentially, there is no universal formula for development. Choices and trade offs have to be country-specific and customized for our specific area.

The trade offs revolve around the level of services throughout the 2 515 square kilometers of land under our jurisdiction.

The trade offs we speak about have largely been between social investment to desegregate and make the City more inclusive by healing the apartheid-legacy wounds; and economic investment that will make the City more productive and investor-friendly to attack poverty and joblessness.

We must have a common vision about these trade offs whether we are classified rightists, leftists, communists, socialists, conservatives, democratic liberals or whatever.

We must recognize our competitive ability as a City and move fast to capitalize on our comparative advantages. In whatever we do, it is the outcomes that matter and we must be creative and innovative. We must also be alert to unintended consequences.

Two of the greatest challenges that confront us are:
to find a politically diversified agenda that accommodates the trade offs; and
to identify and lead the pursuit of the community's interests in the midst of competing and conflicting sectional self-interests.

In our strategy to meet these challenges, we have opted for City Development Strategy (CDS) located within the noble principles of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP).

We are part of a single government and we are guided by macro-economic choices in accessing part of the R47,3 billion set aside last year for the local government sphere over three years. A total of R15,5 billion has been designated for the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG)

I believe we do not have to face the stark choice of social or economic investment, a choice that is at the heart of divisive debates. We can combine the investments and restructure our future within the framework of the RDP.

The RDP integrates growth, development, reconstruction and redistribution into a unified programme. In essence, it links economic and social investment.

The key is to link it to an infrastructure programme that will provide access to modern and effective services such as electricity, water, telecommunications, transport, health, education and training for all.

The IDP informs that Programme as the voice of the people and quantifies the vision and sequenced targets - economic growth, employment, poverty eradication, human resource development and income redistribution.

In assessing our programmes and projects, we must look at the social, economic and political impacts. What indicators do we use to measure these impacts?

Here there seems to be a lack of understanding of the Performance Management System that has started at the top end of the staff complement and is being cascaded down. There is a Performance Management Process Plan which will cascade it further to Councillors and Service Providers.

This System, I believe, must not be seen in narrow human resource terms but rather as making human resources and capital work more productively. Non-compliance with the legislation means that performance is not effectively monitored against the IDP.

The South African Excellence Foundation assessment used poverty, unemployment, low skills and crime for our assessment. We scored only 116 points out of 500 (23%) in which they told us a range of things. It is a stringent assessment benchmarked against international best practice.

They told us that we develop comprehensive plans but are weak on implementation. They told us that there is a lot of energy in our policies and strategies but that we do little to communicate it and review it. The assessment came before out 31 public hearing meetings over 18-days in April this year.

Now we stand to review the many methodologies we undertook over the past four years and we are working to the simple theory that if you cannot measure it you cannot manage it.

We have started on evaluation and we are trying to find the best way to implement it. Emphasis is on implementation and delivery. The related ingredient to implementation is consistent monitoring and evaluation of results. The monitoring and evaluation of performance is essential in changing the culture of the public service.

We know that nothing changes behaviour more than measuring and monitoring, especially when there are consequences for non-delivery. But we know it will take time for a culture of executing plans and focusing on results to be achieved. There will be setbacks but we have started on this important aspect of governance. The system is unfolding and it needs constant review and vigilance. But we are getting there.

Madam speaker I said in my introduction that the City belongs to our children. We will be judged by the legacy we leave.

In assuring that legacy, we have chosen the theoretical analytical framework of CDS which has four quadrants to ensure a brighter tomorrow: a productive, inclusive, financially sustainable and well governed City.

Are we a productive City? Can we boast job creation and have we boosted domestic demand? What are our employment and remuneration trends? How are we responding to urban economic weaknesses?

Are we an inclusive City? Are we entrenching and extending inequalities with our human settlements? Are we integrating physical space? Are we delivering equitable services? What are doing about the fact that only 65% of our people are getting basic services? What is our Human Development Index saying?

Are we a financially sustainable city? Is our income predictable and safe. What about our R321 million arrears? Is our sanitation system Agenda 21 compliant? Did we have a Hepatitis A problem because our sanitation system is polluting our rivers? Are we protecting our natural assets from devastating industrial and urban development?

Are we a well-governed King 2-compliant city? Do we have systems and processes in place with checks and balances against oppressive trends. Do we embrace administrative justice and freedom to access? Do we curb the high propensity for fraud and corruption?

I have dealt with some of the answers to these questions but I would like to make the point to our business leaders here today that while we have borrowed some management practices from the private sector, there is a difference in the operational mechanisms of the two although the demands of efficiency, effectiveness and economy coexist harmoniously.

The techniques we are trying to share with you are a rules-driven, control-oriented and input-focused culture. Public sector values, however, differ. The private sector is driven by profit; the values that predominate in government include service, equity and social justice.

The absence of a reward or sanctioning mechanism in the public sector is missing. There has to be consequence and I have alluded to our Performance Management System which will bring such sanctions.

I make this point, Madam Chair, because some are always critical about us on this score without realizing there is a difference.

How do we create the conditions for job creation and shorten the welfare queues amid our duties to promote integrated service delivery and enable Buffalo City to become globally competitive to attract Foreign Direct Investment?

We start the next 10 decade of our freedom in a unipolar international system with world-wide rapid urbanization, entrenched poverty, joblessness, creeping corruption.

Nevertheless, we are the strongest emerging economy in the world and we have all our macroeconomic fundamentals in place.

We can be stronger if we build the inter-locking staircase between the strong and the weak ends of our dual economy.

It is on this simple strategy that Buffalo City's development and growth prospects are built to ensure wall-to-wall development that eliminates imbalances and the pockets of poverty populated by formerly marginalized people.

It is embedded in the thrust to integrate East London-King William's Town-Mdantsane through movement of goods and people by building infrastructure that will fuse the spatial economy of the area.

It is embedded in the thrust for overarching macro economic thrusts in the area that is organically linked to the micro-economic endeavours in an economic symbiosis that will release the entrepreneurial skills of our people.

Essentially and practically, it means that the interior nodes such as Mdantsane must not just remain untrained labour reservoirs for the economic hubs in East London. There must be backward and forward linkages of goods and services driven within an appropriate legislative framework for industrial and commercial endeavours.

It is essential that we do not remain too idealistic in our strategies. The empty factories in Dimbaza, King William's Town and Fort Jackson are the result of deindustrialization caused by unsustainable incentives to industrialists. It is not because of weak governance on our part and we must come up with creative and innovative plans together with our regional strategic partners that will see these factories being commissioned again.

The point I am making is suitably demonstrated by twin urban renewal programmes in the City driven by two different institutional arrangements. It revolves around East London inner city renewal and the Mdantsane Urban Renewal Programme (Murp).

We've been granted an Urban Tax Incentive in the beachfront area, Quigney and the Central Business District.

It is my view that with a little creative thinking we make the CBD a place for work and to live in. As they are reclaiming the buildings in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth's CBD, we should be thinking seriously of investing in developing office space into apartments where people can live.

The Urban Development Zone (UDZ) qualifies for the erection, extension, addition or improvement of any commercial or residential building to be used for trade. Private sector investors can qualify in terms of the Income Tax Act for an accelerated depreciation allowance on such buildings.

The accelerated depreciation allowance is to promote and stimulate development in the inner city. I have not heard any noise from our business people about this offer. I believe we need to look at the international trend in inner city living and at the Cape Town experience where people are being drawn back to cities.

The concept of inner city living is still young in South Africa but we need to look at how to perhaps restore buildings and convert them into living quarters. When conversions of commercial buildings into living quarters take place, entrepreneurs and retailers follow. It leads to vibrant inner city living. People tired of the traffic problem and rather want to live in the CBD where they work.

Our business people should take the lead in this while we try to force our development footprint onto the agenda through the Buffalo City Development Agency. (BCDA)

The three-phased establishment of the (BCDA) is one of the most exciting aspects of our economic development programme in which we hope to leverage the potential investment opportunities inherent in various area-specific parts of the City within our Spatial Development Framework.

It is hard to understand how part of this distinct geographic footprint has been allowed to lie undeveloped for so long and we are starting on the beachfront with a natural progression through he Quigney, Southernwood and into the interior to link up with the Mdantsane Urban Renewal Programme and the King-Bisho integration initiatives.

I still cannot understand how the Nahoon Reef, a world attraction with great potential cannot leave a discerning investor highly interested. The concept of golf estates has taken off in other parts of the country and we have divine offerings for this concept. Yet there seems to be some hesitancy.

The Development Agency is designed to promote and captivate interest in the potential as a leader in our development programme. It is one of our institutional vehicles for the City and must not be seen as the be all and end all of our development programme.

Our development footprint must be broadened:

• We must intensify identified possibilities within agriculture (beyond the replication of the 19 projects in Mbombo-Ndidikane and generally Umqokozo);
• boost tourism extension to the rural areas through the Buffalo City Tourism Masterplan which identifies five priority nodes (King-Bisho historic cultural node; N6 to Macleantown; Mdantsane; Nahoon Bonza Bay; and the Main Beachfront area (Esplanade);
• We must intensify SMME interventions through the Mdantsane and King efforts (one-stop tourism shop & open for business etc)
• We must pursue concrete possibilities and partnership offers on project-led development such as Skyways and other social housing;
• We must rehabilitate and invest in the Gauteng-EL line that will promote the car terminal in our under utilized port;
• We must get closure on future of the Sleeper Site
• We must get movement on the rail-based transport plan that ensures predictability for the thousands of Mdantsane-based workers spilling out daily onto the West Bank
• We must bring finality on decisions of non-core functions which result in non-productive financial seepage (resorts, aquarium, zoo and museum)

Madam Speaker, there are other promising aspects of development which cannot be left out if we are to succeed with a proper legacy for our children:

• Partnership with companies like DaimlerChrysler who's performance and contribution to our City's economy is unquestionable. Last year, according to the Financial Mail, they predicted acquiring 5% market growth. They recorded over 20% and of course are investing R2bn in retooling for the start of the production of the C class in 2007 when they will double the West Bank plant's production to 80 000 units creating 2 000 direct and indirect permanent jobs;
• Partnership with the University of Fort Hare following its decision to make the East London campus its growth point with a R700m expansion programme over 10years to provide the City with its first fully fledged university campaus; and
• Aligning the City's infrastructure capacity to provide services for large-scale investment inquiries
• Strategising for the 2010 Soccer World Cup which will inject R21,3 billion in the country's GDP and bring 400 000 foreign visitors. We are looking at building a stadium and staking our claim in this once-in-a-lifetime event.

In closing, allow me to pay tribute to all the visionaries and committed people who have made the progress of these past four years possible.

I wish to thank the ANC for giving me the opportunity to train in the cadreship of local government. To Mayoral Committee Members and Councillors for the political assistance that enabled our achievements.

To City Manager Mxolisi Tsika together with his Directors, General Managers, Managers and entire staff for the implementation which has made us the municipality that we are.

To my core staff: the Director in the Office of the Executive Mayor, the Chief of Staff, my personal assistant and the other secretaries and staff who made it possible for me to be an Executive Mayor.

Lastly, to my family for their sacrifices in the cause of my work.

Sindisile Maclean
Executive Mayor
27th May 2005.