East London
The Eastern Cape Provincial Legislature will be hosting its annual Taking Legislature to the people in Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM), from 21-24 October 2025, under the theme “Improving service delivery through embedded participation in the year of the Freedom Charter.” Taking Legislature to the People forms an integral part of the legislature’s public participation and education initiatives to strengthen participatory democracy in the province.
The oversight and public participation programme is also aimed to ensure that members of the public have an opportunity to directly interact with their elected public representatives, their voices are incorporated in the legislature oversight work and further ensures that the legislature is transparent, accessible and responsive to the needs of citizens.
During the four-day sitting, the Legislature will provide an opportunity to Members of the Executive Council (MECs) to account to the people on their departmental programmes. Six Portfolio Committees will be expected to table their reports, and these will be discussed in the presence of members of the public. The Legislature will also afford members of the public an opportunity to deliberate and interrogate the reports from the Portfolio Committees on Social Development, Economic Development, Environmental Affairs, and Tourism, Human Settlements, Public Works and Infrastructure, Cooperative Governance, Agriculture and Community Safety. The programme which is expected to attract 700 members of the public from BCMM wards daily is scheduled to take place as follows:
Date: 21-24 October 2025
Venue: East London International Convention Centre
Time :09h00
Section 118 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa provides for legislatures to facilitate public involvement in legislative and other processes of their committees. It also provides for legislatures to conduct their businesses in an open manner, and to hold their sittings and those of their committees in public.
