‘ Gatvol ’ residents take BCM to court
Legal route taken to try and force municipal officials to do their jobs
He was unable to sleep on some nights because of the revolting smell emanating from the site
Sick to death of illegal dumping in their metro, Buffalo City residents are taking the municipality to court in a bid to compel the authority to clean up its act.
A major blow has already been struck by residents of Vergenoeg, with the East London high court ordering Buffalo City Metro (BCM) to address an illegal dump site which has become a health hazard and an assault on the senses of people living in the community.
Alphen Road residents who have found the illegal rubbish dump developing right in their midst, say their living conditions have become unacceptable as the site is an eyesore and gives off a putrid stench.
Attorney Brandon Blignaut, of Niehaus McMahon Attorneys, told the Dispatch that illegal dumping had become such a problem for communities all across the metro that residents were now prepared to pursue court action to force the metro municipality to do its job.
The court action is one of a number of similar cases involving illegal dump sites and broken sewage outlets in the metro aimed at pressing municipal officials to do their jobs.
BCM also faces action in relation to sites in West Bank, Cambridge and Pefferville.
Similar approaches to the courts already have been made in other parts of the province, notably Makhanda where residents of Extension 6 in Joza Township are putting pressure on the Makana municipality to clean up the filth on their streets.
In the Vergenoeg matter, the court was told the city does not have an integrated waste management plan (IWMP), a key requirement for every local authority and the absence of which hobbles BCM’s ability to manage the disposal of waste.
The metro, which was hauled to court along with the provincial department of human settlements, has 15 working days to clean up 183 Alphen Road.
The city has also been ordered to provide a plan ensuring that the Alphen Road erf does not revert to an illegal dump site once the area is cleaned, and that it complies with the National Environmental Management Waste Act.
Measures that BCM might be forced to implement include fencing off the land or building a structure around it to prevent illegal dumping. The court also ordered the municipality to submit an IWMP.
Blignaut said residents became very despondent after repeated efforts to talk to BCM were spurned. A neighbour adjacent to the Vergenoeg plot approached the court through a non-profit organisation, the Centre for Local Community Rights, because of the unhealthy environment created by the illegal dumping.
Resident Albert Venter, who lives next to the illegal dump site, complained that the site stinks, is unhealthy and attracts rats and other vermin. It also presented a fire risk. He said he was unable to sleep on some nights because of the overpowering smell emanating from the site. He also had to contend with plastic bags and other waste material constantly being blown into his property.
The applicants in court suggested that BCM’s inability to deal with the sprouting of illegal dumping sites was due to the absence of an IWMP.
A draft plan appeared to be in place but, without an associated budget and ancillary action steps, it meant nothing.
While the provincial housing department responded to the court action by pointing the finger at BCM as having legal oversight of the property, BCM has acknowledged neither the residents complaint, nor the legal action brought against the metro.
The provincial housing authority’s asset management office in Chiselhurst said the plot was among erven inherited from the previous government after 1994 and which were effectively transferred to the metro for onward sale.
Human settlements properties and assets director Thobeka Motolwana said there was somehow evidence BCM acted “” on its mandate to sell the erven, but the records of who was sold which property from these erven are residing with the municipality.
The Dispatch has previously reported that illegal dumping was even witnessed just outside the entrance to the city’s R47m main solid waste facility, Roundhill, in Berlin.
The site is an eyesore and gives off a putrid stench
Civil society, individuals and big business in the Eastern Cape are on a mission to hold the province’s appalling municipalities to account.
Public participation, civil unrest and engagement with ward councillors have not delivered desired results. Most municipalities in this province continue to fail their citizens.
Left with no option, people are increasingly trying to litigate municipalities into meeting their constitutional and other obligations. But resorting to court is a tedious process and when you sign up for it, you had better be able to commit for the long haul.
It is the same for those of us who write about these cases. It just never seems to end.
The litigants successfully sue the municipalities to force them to meet their constitutional obligations. That alone takes months. In the end, citizens almost always succeed. We put the result on the front page and people celebrate.
There is a feeling that there is now light at the end of the tunnel, but the celebrations are usually premature.
Instead of heeding the court order requiring it to simply do its job, the officials and politicians on the council will generally seek leave to appeal. That is refused, and the municipality will then petition the Supreme Court of Appeal. The SCA rejects the petition. The municipality is still not able to fulfil the terms of the order after all avenues of appeal are refused.
The litigants apply for the responsible officials to be held in contempt of court and jailed. The officials are found in contempt of court and seek leave to appeal, which is refused. The officials petition the SCA, which grants leave to appeal and meanwhile months, and even years, have gone by.
And it all becomes academic because every five years we have an election and everything changes. And nothing changes.
There are various deviations on the above scenario but — whatever the outcome of the applications for leave to appeal — it just never seems to end.
The politicians, the municipalities and their officials can draw out the litigation no matter how dishonourable it may seem.
For the most part it seems as though they are using public money to fund litigation to fight against doing the job they are mandated by law to do. Like Sisyphus who is condemned for eternity to roll his rock up the hill — only to watch it giving way to gravity and rolling back down — the farce continues.
Having covered the courts for well over a decade, the lawyers usually keep me in the loop. I sometimes feel like a juggler with too many balls in the air.
There are businesses litigating Eskom and municipalities to prevent the lights being turned off. There are civil society organisations suing municipalities to ensure a variety of services are provided. There are individuals, drowning in sewage, suing for their children to have the right to live in sewage-free homes and go to sewage-free schools.
A lawyer will phone with a result and to inform me of the next step in their particular litigation strategy.
As a new case starts, we dust ourselves off and head to court to peruse the new pile of papers in the court registrar’s office.
The cases run to hundreds of pages. A court date is set and I set myself up at home to be part of the virtual hearing.
The legal arguments are interesting but the litany of sad circumstance existing in each municipality when balanced against the requirements of the law is depressing.
There are some advantages to virtual hearings. The Sisyphean efforts to hold to account careless executives and criminally hopeless administrations seems to be bearing small fruit.
There are tiny pockets of improvement in some municipalities. In others, an increasingly angry electorate is watching as their rates and taxes are squandered in defending the indefensible. One way or another, change seems inevitable. And we’ll be there to record it.