‘Lock up our failing municipal manager,’ villagers tell court

The Covid-19 pandemic has driven a protracted legal battle between local government and a group of 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.

The community have brought an urgent application to have the municipal manager held responsible – and jailed – for her administration’s failings, due to come before the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday.

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 – widely accepted as vital to curbing the spread of the virus – 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 since then. 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 JoJo tanks are therefore standing empty, 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, and recognising the devastating impact of this failure on the lives of the impoverished people living [within] the area,” she added.

The villagers now want the municipal manager, in which position Molatelo Mabitsela is currently acting, found in contempt of court and jailed.

Of the urgency of the matter, Scher said: “The lack of access to a sufficient, safe and reliable water supply continues to endanger the lives of the affected community members … The applicants, like all people, need access to safe water to live, however as things stand they have been forced to resort to utilising alternative unsafe sources of water which continue to pose a danger to their health and quality of life.”

But Mabitsela said the application was 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.

“[The] applicant wants the court to believe that it will ensure strict compliance … However, the founding affidavit does not demonstrate how such harsh measures … will ensure strict compliance,” she said. “Even if such were demonstrated, there is no evidence that same justifies the applicant approaching the court on an urgent basis.”

Of the allegations made against the municipality, Mabitsela vehemently denied it had failed to comply with its obligations. She conceded that previously there had been non-compliance with the court orders in place and that in February there had been a breakdown at the bulk service provider, Lepelle Northern Water.

But, she said, measures had since been put in place “to rectify same”.

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