By Nangamso Mabindla
13 September 2005

THE BUFFALO City Social Cluster has a number of projects planned for this financial year to improve community facilities. This is the word of the director of social services, Peter King.

The Social Cluster, which forms part of the directorate of social services, had five social issues to deal with for the City to succeed in supplying good community facilities.

These included inequitable primary health care, adverse environmental health conditions, inadequate community facilities and vulnerability to disasters, especially in places like Duncan Village.

However, King said, Buffalo City had plans to overcome these challenges. "We plan to have accessible and equitable primary health care for all communities and adequate community facilities, and we also want to mitigate disasters."

Outlining the cluster's projects for the 2005/06 financial year, King said funds had been earmarked for upgrading the Mdantsane Cemeteries, buying a fire engine, upgrading the East London Central Library and upgrading the City's sports facilities.

The swimming pool in Zwelitsha will be refurbished

"We have set aside just over R3-million to purchase a new fire engine; we are in need of these fire engines in Buffalo City."

In addition, R2,4-million had been made available for the refurbishment of existing fire engines.

The City had also set aside R1-million to refurbish the central library, which is one of East London's most loved buildings. "We haven't refurbished the library for some time, so we thought we would put money aside [for that]."

Turning to parking meters, King said R1,8-million had been earmarked for installing new parking meters in the city centre.

"This will enable us to curb the traffic congestion in the central business district, especially during the end of the month," King explained.

Turning his attention to sports facilities, King said in the last financial year the City spent R3,5-million on the Buffalo Flats Astro Turf, the Schoeman Stadium, to go with the existing Xerox, Selborne College and King William's Town hockey stadiums. It had also recently refurbished the Zwelitsha Swimming Pool.

In this financial year, over R8-million would be spent on improving the Jan Smuts Athletic Stadium, the Sisa Dukashe Stadium in Mdantsane, the Dimbaza and Zwelitsha stadiums and improving rural stadiums.

"There are a lot of projects lined up for this year and we want to make sure that we succeed in improving the lives of the people we serve," King said.