Byline: Kelebogile Masemola
06 March 2022
Councillor Flora Maboa-Boltman is the newly elected Deputy President of the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), alongside Cllr. Xanthea Limberg (Western Cape, City of Cape Town) and Cllr. Xola Pakati (Eastern Cape, Buffalo City Metro Municipality).
Ms Boltman who hails from Kinross, Mpumalanga, and is also a Member of the Mayoral Committee at Gert Sibande District Municipality is not new to SALGA, she served as the SALGA’s Women Commission Chairperson before her new position as deputy president.
The three deputy presidents including Ms Boltman were elected during SALGA’s two-day national conference that came to an end on Friday, 04 March 2022 at the Cape Town International Conference Centre.
The election saw Matjhabeng Local Municipality (Free State) Speaker Bheki Stofile elected as the organisation’s new president.
Ms Boltman says the process was not easy at all as other provinces had their own preferences and contestation, but in the end they came to the conclusion that she is the best candidate for the job.
“After realizing the race I ran inside, they realized that in terms of experience, in terms of maturity, in terms of being a woman representative within the organisation, they came to a conclusion that I am a good candidate for the position,” Cllr. Maboa-Boltman said.
She furthermore explained that her role as the deputy president will be to build SALGA so that it is able to build municipalities.
“For SALGA to be able to build municipalities, we sit and interpret the pieces of legislation of all municipal administration, we play a role of making them understand what every piece of legislation means.
On top of the legislation, we are a sector that formulates frameworks and assist the municipalities in the making up of policies so that they know how to formulate policies and formulate IGR structures as well as playing a lobbying role between them, provincial and national government by having presentations at national government and put their issues in parliament,” she said.