Fix the problem or face the music. That's the ultimatum issued to the eThekwini municipality by DA KwaZulu-Natal chair and national public works and infrastructure minister Dean Macpherson over the city's ongoing sewage management crisis.
He was speaking outside the Pietermaritzburg high court on Thursday ahead of court action by the DA and Action SA to hold the municipality legally liable for the infrastructure woes which have led to widespread pollution of local rivers and repeated closures of some beaches.
“We are saying to the municipality it should implement a directive given by the provincial government in 2023. If you do not want to do it, we will get the court to force the city to fix the mess. If you do not follow the instructions of the court, we will get a contempt of court order and make sure that all officials implicated go to jail," he said.
On Thursday lawyers of both political parties presented their arguments.
The parties were joined into a single case to determine whether the city has responded reasonably to resolve the crisis and to also consider new measures, including the appointment of an independent administrator to supervise the city’s wastewater management.
In heads of argument prepared by legal counsel Max du Plessis SC, Toni Palmer and Ruchir Naidoo, the DA alleges the city leadership is “playing possum” [pretending to be dead to avoid a situation] and resorted to “opportunistic” excuses by denying culpability for the crisis.
Noting that the city’s water and sanitation department had been presented with UN awards in 2007 and 2011 for “world-class” sanitation and service delivery, the DA counsel said the problems were evident before the devastating floods in 2021.
They said while the city tried to blame water hyacinth for clogging treatment plants, resulting in beach closures in December 2021, it was high levels of E. coli that were the root cause.
“The question eThekwini studiously avoids in explaining its position in these proceedings is what happened between 2007 and now, to take this award-winning system to its present state? Plainly the infrastructure did not age or break overnight.
It is clear from the past few years the eThekwini municipality has not resolved this issue and is indifferent to their constitutional violations of the rights of its residents
— Zwakele Mncwango, KZN ActionSA leader
“Had eThekwini intended seriously to dispute the averment it had underprioritised its wastewater infrastructure in the past decade, it would have done so by disclosing the amounts, its plans and confirming the adequacy of its budgetary allocations during this time. eThekwini’s answering affidavit is entirely mum on this,” the DA team argued.
After long-term failures to resolve the sewage crisis, ActionSA filed papers in 2022 against the municipality, citing violations of the constitutionally enshrined rights of eThekwini residents to a safe and clean environment and their right to economic development.
The sewage crisis has impacted the city with frequent beach closures due to unsafe E. coli levels, the pollution of water systems and communities suffering the indignity of sewage overflows.
This impacted on the domestic economy, with annual tourist visits to eThekwini dropping from 15-million in 2015 to less than 800,000 in 2023.
ActionSA’s legal action asks the court to declare the failures of the municipality unconstitutional and to compel them to produce a turnaround crisis plan in conjunction with a time-bound court order.
ActionSA also called for senior officials to be jailed or held in contempt of court for any deviation from the court-ordered plan.
KZN ActionSA leader Zwakele Mncwango said the party was pleased that the matter was finally before the courts “to fight this long overdue fight on behalf of residents”.
“It is clear from the past few years the eThekwini municipality has not resolved this issue and is indifferent to their constitutional violations of the rights of its residents,” he said.
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