Station water cutoff in court

The City of Joburg will defend its decision to cut the water supply to the Sandton Gautrain station in the High Court in Johannesburg today.

The city cut off the water to the station on September 7. This followed a dispute with Cedar Park Properties 39 Pty Ltd (Cedar Park), a company linked to Regiments Capital, the owner of the property where the station is situated.

According to the city, records showed that Cedar Park has not been paying municipal rates and services since the registration of the property in its name in 2013.

“The landlord has in effect been receiving free services for the past six years,” Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba, pictured, said yesterday.

“Earlier this month, the city was left with no option but to cut off water supply to the station.

“This followed extensive efforts to get the landlord to pay its R8 million debt to the city for water, refuse, sewage and property rates.”

Cedar Park has decided to approach the high court on an urgent basis, seeking an interdict directing the city and Joburg Water to reconnect their water supply.

Gautrain has asked the city to urgently restore water supply to its Sandton station.

“While we have subsequently implemented temporary measures, such as portable ablution facilities, to ensure passengers and employees are not adversely affected, we do have health and hygiene concerns.

“It is [a] public transport system with more than 20 000 people passing through the station every day and our standard ablution facilities at the station are not operational,” the company said.

“We call on the City of Johannesburg to restore the water supply to the station and to resolve the dispute with Cedar Park Properties via the appropriate legal channels.”

But the city stuck to its guns, saying it issued a pre-termination notice to Cedar Park on August 3 last year for outstanding debt.

“Only one payment of R670 000 was forthcoming on an outstanding debt of R3.3 million at the time.

“Cedar Park made no effort to enter into a payment arrangement with the city for the debt. “The city again issued Cedar Park with a pretermination notice on July 30 this year.

“No payment followed,” said Mashaba. – News24 Wire