South African Communist Party

SACP congratulates Bheke Stofile, its Free State Provincial Secretary and SALGA President, on his election as one of the Co-Presidents of the United Cities and Local Governments

Monday, 17 October 2022

The South African Communist Party (SACP) congratulates its Free State Provincial Secretary Bheke Stofile, Speaker of the Matjhabeng Local Municipality and President of the South African Local Government Association, on his election as one of the Co-Presidents of the United Cities and Local Governments. Stofile was elected at the World Congress of the United Cities and Local Governments, held in Daejeon, South Korea, from 10 to 14 October 2022.

“My election came when there are many challenges facing local governments across the world. The challenges revolve around co-operative governance and intra-government collaboration to deliver local government services to the people”, said Stofile upon his arrival in South Africa, at the OR Tambo International Airport, on Sunday morning, 16 October 2022.

During his closing remarks at the World Congress of the United Cities and Local Governments, Stofile said “Local government acts like your legs as the state. Local government takes you to your destination. If the legs are weak, you might not arrive at your destination to serve people”, he said.

“In South Africa, we need to allocate budgetary resources, strengthen capacity building and improve professionalism, including through merit-based recruitment to eliminate uneven development systematically, paying more attention to upgrading and developing rural municipal area”, stressed Stofile upon his arrival back in South Africa.

At the moment, rural municipalities are allocated the least of resources, yet they are expected to play a great part in undoing historical imbalances and underdevelopment, he said.

Stofile urged the South African people to re-look at the formula used to allocate budgetary resources to respond adequately to the needs of the people in rural municipalities while strengthening municipal governance and service delivery in the metropolitan municipalities.

Infrastructure in rural municipalities is a critical area of concern compared to the state of development in the cities and needs greater attention.

Stofile emphasised the importance of protecting local government in South Africa, expressing concern about the killings of councillors and municipal officials in the country.