[DEBATE] : (Fwd) More reports from Joburg court on Soweto water war

[Patrick Bond]

SABC

Phiri residents hoping for a miracle

December 03, 2007, 17:30

Residents of Phiri in Soweto are hoping that the Johannesburg High Court 
will rule in their favour. The residents and others affected by prepaid 
water meters are challenging the City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg 
Water and the Department of Water and Forestry for unlawfully installing 
prepaid water meters unilaterally.

Advocate Wim Trengove has told the court that the prepaid meters were 
imposed on the residents. He also said that the installation of these 
meters violated residents' right to the access of sufficient water. He 
added that while Phiri residents were being forced to pay for their 
water before using it, richer people are allowed to use the water first 
and to pay later.

Johannesburg Water is not the only respondent in this case. The City of 
Johannesburg and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry will also 
be making their submissions over the next three days. Experts say that 
although there are five applicants in this case, it has enormous 
significance for all of South Africa because of its constitutional 
implications.

***

Business Day

04 December 2007

City failed in duty to give water to all, court told

Ernest Mabuza

Legal Affairs Correspondent

THE state had a duty to progressively ensure sustainable access to water 
services — a duty that had been breached by the City of Johannesburg’s 
introduction of prepaid water meters in Phiri, Soweto, the Johannesburg 
High Court heard yesterday.

Five unemployed residents of Phiri launched an application that sought 
to declare that the city and Johannesburg Water’s policy of 
disconnecting their water supply and the forced installation of prepaid 
water meters was unconstitutional.

They also seek to review and set aside the city and Johannesburg Water’s 
decisions to set the amount of free water at 6kl a month for each stand .

Alternatively, the residents want Johannesburg Water be ordered to 
provide each applicant and other indigent residents of Phiri with a free 
basic water supply of 50l a person each day; and the option of a metered 
supply installed at the cost of the City of Johannesburg.

Wim Trengove, counsel for the residents, said the installation of meters 
was a regressive step by the city. “For rich people, this would not 
matter ... For poor people, this is a very serious matter. Water runs 
out on the 12th of each month, no matter how sparingly it is used,” 
Trengove said.

He said the residents were challenging the use of prepaid water meters 
by the city and its supplying structure, Johannesburg Water, not merely 
the system’s introduction in Phiri.

“They are particularly unlawful where the consumer has not voluntarily 
chosen to use a pre-paid water meter rather than a credit meter.”

In her affidavit, applicant Lindiwe Mazibuko said that before March 17 
2004, all 20 members of her household had had access to a full-pressure, 
unmetered, unlimited water supply for which a flat-rate charge of up to 
R68,40 was levied.

She said the system was altered on March 17 2004. A field worker from 
Johannesburg Water came to her home and told her the old secondary 
midi-block water supply system was “old and rusty” and would be replaced.

“This facilitator told me unequivocally he would merely replace old and 
rusty equipment. He did not tell me the flat-rate water system would be 
affected.

“He specifically did not mention anything about installing a prepayment 
water meter system,” Mazibuko said.

Trengove said the city and Johannesburg Water’s contention that the law 
did not oblige them to provide free basic water to the poor was wrong.

He said sections 27(1)(b) and 27(2) of the constitution imposed a duty 
on them to provide free basic water to the poor people of Johannesburg. 
Section 27(1)(b) gave everyone the right “to have access to” sufficient 
water.

It meant it must be possible for everyone to obtain sufficient water. He 
said if water was available only at a price, then those who could afford 
it had access to it while those too poor to pay for it would not have 
access.

Trengove said the poor could not be said “to have access” to water that 
was available to them only at a price they could not afford to pay.

He said section 27(2) of the constitution obliged the state to take 
reasonable legislative and other measures, within available resources, 
to achieve the progressive realisation of the right to have access to 
sufficient water.