THE Westville Ratepayers’ Association (WRA) commends the response of the community following their proposal to be joined in claiming non-promulgated property tariffs. The association held a public meeting on January 29 after their investigations had revealed that property-tariff increases in the years between 2005 to 2009 were not published in the provincial gazette by the municipality as per law.

According to a court ruling by the Mmabatho High Court, this then warrants property owners to claim these tariffs.

ALSO READ: Westville Ratepayers’ Association in pursuit of what belongs to them

The strategic plan to take on this force was tabled during the public meeting. Part of the plan was to also join forces with other suburbs in Durban as they are not excluded from this ordeal.

The association has started with their mobilisation since then as they recently met with the Ratepayers’ Association in Merebank. They have also been joined by community members whose field of expertise is law.

Mohammed Waseem Joosub of MW Joosub Attorneys in Westville, who will be helping the association in this legal route, took the case for legal review and gave feedback to the organisation. Among other factors, these are some that the attorney highlighted:

“The appeal court ruled that bringing the application on such a basis was the proper course of action. Since the principle of legality is found in Section 172 of the Constitution, and constitutional declaratory relief is found in Section 38 of the Constitution, all a court requires is a reasonable explanation of why the application is brought when it is brought.

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“Under these circumstances, the WRA will be required to bring an application seeking a declarator from the High Court as to whether the conduct of the eThekwini Municipality, with regards to the levying of rates for the years 2005 to 2009, was indeed unlawful,” stated the law firm.

Asad Gaffar, who chairs the WRA, said they are victims of this alleged fault.
“The fact is: The city failed to promulgate its rates correctly in the period of 2005 to 2009. We bore a serious backlash of reactions from various quarters accusing the WRA of capitalising on an error of judgment, of being too vindictive and that during the period in question, the Ratepayers had received services (which might be true) – but we cannot ignore the fact that service delivery has collapsed and is getting worse,” he said.

The WRA said this legal approach was decided after several attempts to include the eThekwini Municipality, which according to the WRA were not a success.

“After the formation of the WRA, we embarked on a journey of engagement with senior officials of the municipality. From its very inception, the WRA made it clear that we wanted to partner and have an open and working relationship with the municipality. The WRA also engaged directly with all four ward councillors and offered monthly meetings with them, which worked for one or two months. As soon as the tough questions were raised, they conveniently found themselves busy with ‘more important tasks at hand’. The ward councillors in Westville, essentially, disengaged.”

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They said they had also met with eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda who promised to treat their concerns seriously and bring about a reformation across all departments, with a view to improving service delivery.

“Our monthly meetings with the City have collapsed. We’ve been abandoned by eThekwini Municipality who cite frivolous reasons and excuses, from there being no chairperson available and no equipment to host the online meeting, to the reports that are ‘not yet ready’ for discussion! Our questions are still awaiting answers,” they said.

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