Villagers’ water battle hots up

ANGRY: RESIDENTS WANT MUNICIPAL MANAGER JAILED

Case has been in and out of court since 2015, with no solution in sight.

The Covid-19 pandemic has driven a protracted legal battle between local government and villagers in rural Sekhukhune in Limpopo – who have been without a reliable water supply for the greater part of the last decade now – to a new crescendo.

An urgent application has been submitted to have the municipal manager held responsible – and jailed – for her administration’s failings, due to come before the High Court in Pretoria today.

Ariella Scher from the University of Witswatersrand’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies, which is representing the villagers, described the situation as “dire” in the papers.

And she said it had become “exacerbated and even more pressing” in light of the pandemic, with those living in the thousands of affected households unable to practice regular hand washing without water.

The case has been in and out of court since 2015, with multiple orders compelling the municipality to provide the villagers with water having been handed down. But, despite this, said Scher, their supply continued to be “intermittent at best”.

“They are receiving reticulated water once a week and, at most, two trucks are filling their JoJo tanks. The tanks are quickly emptied because the water provided is used up immediately,” she said.

Attempts to engage directly with both the municipality’s lawyers and Water and Sanitation

Minister Lindiwe Sisulu herself had come to nought, Scher said, and this demonstrated how government had “fallen far short of adequately addressing the continuing failure by the [municipality] to comply with court orders and the threat that it poses to the rule of law”.

“Also recognising the devastating impact of this failure on the lives of the impoverished people living in the area,” she added.

The villagers want municipal manager Molatelo Mabitsela found in contempt of court and jailed.

But, says Mabitsela, the application is nothing more than a “deliberate attempt to embarrass the municipality by holding the municipal manager in contempt of court using the plight of the poor community”.

In her papers, Mabitsela argued the case was not urgent because the relief being sought was punitive in nature.

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