BUFFALO City is on a drive to change its status to a metropolitan city and as part of this process it is consulting with residents on how to cluster their wards.

In the latest meeting, on 5 August, the City met stakeholders for the first time since they submitted their proposals for ward delimitation.

Ward clustering was held in November 2009 and all proposals were submitted on 18 December. The process involved councillors and Buffalo City officials visiting each ward to give detailed explanations of how the changes would take place.

At one of the meetings late last year, City official Yolande Nkosi emphasised that the municipality was guided by the general rules of the Municipal Demarcation Board (MDB) when drawing up new wards. "These rules include that ward boundaries do not change when an existing ward complies with the norm unless it is required by the reconfiguration of the other wards."

The clustering of wards is one of the things that a city must do to change its status to a metropolitan city. During the ward delimitation consultations, the MDB drew up a map with proposed wards. It took into consideration physical characteristics such as road networks, rivers and mountains.

The MDB also proposed that there be 100 councillors and 50 wards by 2011.

A metropolitan city has a common property rating and service tariff, and a single metropolitan budget. A municipality may also decentralise powers and its functions when it becomes a metro.

In metropolitan areas there is also a choice of two types of executive systems; in one, the executive authority is given to the mayor and in the other, collective executive powers are given to the executive committee.

At the latest meeting - held at Buffalo Park Stadium in Quigney last week - it was concluded that the City was left with about eight months before the elections and it needed to fast track the process.

The South African Cities Network chief executive officer, Sithole Mbanga, raised the alarm regarding speeding up of the process and the workshop agreed that an office to deal specifically with metro issues needed to be established.

In addition, the chief executive of the MDB, Hilary Monare, reported that regarding ward delimitation, Buffalo City had done satisfactorily so far. Of the 50 wards that are planned for the City, only 11 objected and gave adequate reasons for their objections.