By Nangamso Mabindla
IN TABLING the R1,8-billion 2005/06 budget, Buffalo City Mayor
Sindisile Maclean said that while it was "pro poor", keeping in line
with previous budgets, this year's budget would focus more on the
future of the city.
Operational expenditure gets the lion's share, at 77 percent of the budget, with the balance going towards capital expenditure. In effect, R1,4-billion will be used for operational purposes such as salaries and wages, repairs and maintenance, telephones and materials - services for which there will be short-term benefits.
More than R400-million will be used for long-term purchases and investments, including land and buildings, motor vehicles, construction of roads, electricity and water.
In his State of the City address, his last before the local government elections later in the year, delivered in East London on Friday, 27 May, Maclean said that for this year's budget he had adopted the slogan "The future of Buffalo City is happening".
"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."
However, for the City to lay a better foundation for the future it needed to pause to reflect and ask some incisive questions.
"The foundation must be based on the outcomes of the possible policy permutations for the next five years. This house must lay down, own and take responsibility for that foundation. It is our legacy for the future of our children," Maclean said.
The City still had a lot of challenges to overcome in order to create a better future for its young. "In 2001, 53 000 households told us they had no income; we are now budgeting on the basis that 70 percent of our households are classified as indigent, earning less than R1 500 a month."
Only 63 percent of families had formal shelter; transport costs had doubled between 1990 and 2002; 43 percent had no access to banking; and only 5,5 percent had home loans.
A big task lay ahead if the City was to achieve its ambition of creating a better future, the mayor said, adding that there were programmes in place aimed at improving living conditions and creating employment for the poor.
Through projects like the Mdantsane Urban Renewal Programme, the East London Inner City Renewal, The Beachfront Development Agency and the Urban Development Zone, the council aimed to improve conditions in the city.
"It is my view that with a little creative thinking, we can make the central business district a place for work and to live in. We should be thinking of investing in developing office space into where people can live."
On the other hand, the recently gazetted Urban Development Zone qualified for the erection, extension, addition or improvement of any commercial or residential building to be used for trade.
"The establishment of the Buffalo City Development Agency is one of the most exciting aspects of our economic development programme ... We hope to leverage the potential investment opportunities inherent in various area-specific parts of the city within our Spatial Development Framework," Maclean added.
With the City Development Strategy, a theoretical analytical framework, the council wanted to ensure a brighter tomorrow by turning Buffalo City into a productive, inclusive, financially sustainable and well governed region.
Other areas of development could also be exploited, including Nahoon Reef; agriculture; tourism; small, medium and micro enterprises; and the Gauteng-East London railway line that would promote the car terminal at the East London port.
"There are other promising aspects of development which cannot be left out if we are to succeed with a proper legacy for our children," the mayor said.
These included partnerships with the private sector, educational
institutions such as Fort Hare University, and strategising for the
2010 Soccer World Cup, which would inject about R21 billion into
the country's gross domestic product and bring about 400 000
foreign visitors to South Africa.
Source: Buffalo City
Presentation for Seminar
