SALGA Eastern Cape to convene Annual Provincial Members Assembly in East London

Posted: 06 December 2024

The South African Local Government Association (SALGA) Eastern Cape will host its Annual Provincial Members Assembly (PMA) on December 4 - 5, 2024, at the East London International Convention Centre in Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality.

The Provincial Members Assembly brings together representatives from all municipalities and other stakeholders in the Eastern Cape Province. The PMA is an essential forum to drive the strategic agenda of local government in alignment with the directives of the Provincial Conference that took place in 2021.

SALGA Constitution prescribes that the Provincial Executive Committee convene a Provincial Members Assembly (PMA) to review and report on the organization's performance in the past year and adopt the action plan for the ensuing year. The assembly also serves as a strategic platform for members to discuss internal as well as external factors/challenges confronting the sector to strengthen cooperative governance and facilitate solutions for the local government sector. The PMA therefore is an annual gathering and premier event for SALGA members in Eastern Cape. It offers opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, and knowledge exchange in best practices in the sector while shaping the future agenda of organized local government in the province.

The theme for this year's PMA is "Restoring the local government image through building accountable and responsive governance". The province's PMA takes place at a time when the local government sector is experiencing several challenges including but not limited to perceived declining levels of oversight, institutional capacity constraints, inadequate funding coupled with compromised internal controls systems, lower revenue collection levels, increasing attacks of municipal infrastructure and excessive costs of service delivery.
In addition to these are serious concerns about the decaying state of our towns, poor branding of municipal buildings, the questionable extent of climate adaptability of our infrastructure, poor disaster response capability, emerging existential challenges linked to an increasing number of off – grid consumers as well as poor municipal billing systems. To a greater extent, the programme is structured in such a manner that it enables participants to dissect issues and package concrete actionable solutions.

The assembly will be attended by municipal leadership including the Premier of the Eastern Cape, Hon. Oscar Mabuyane, MEC for Cogta, Hon. Zolile Williams, SALGA President, Cllr. Bhekumzi Charles Stofile, among others. Other critical stakeholders include but are not limited to representatives from the House of Traditional and Koi-son leaders and labour unions.
Members of the media are invited to attend the PMA as follows:

Date:04-05 December 2024
Time: 09:00 AM
Venue: East London ICC

Issued by: South African Local Government Association (Eastern Cape)
For any media enquiries, confirmations and interviews please do not hesitate to contact Sandiswa Pholo on 084 888 9514 or email: -spholo@salga.org.za