Community members gathered at the Vryheid High School hall on Thursday evening, where they were educated and empowered from a legal perspective.
Andreas Peens, a lawyer from Koster, was there to tell them how to demand accountability from a municipality that is failing to provide proper service delivery.
Peens is an expert in administrative law – cases against municipalities. He explained that what the residents of Vryheid are experiencing is not something new; it has been happening in other towns as well. The residents were advised to take photos with a date and time stamp application to indicate sewage leaks, open electrical boxes, broken streetlights, etc. Peens said this will strengthen any future cases. He furthermore said that a community has the right to water, but not for 24 hours. According to the constitution, a household has the right to 50 litres of water per day. He also referred to the three transformers – of which only one is functional – asking what happened to the funds to fix the other two transformers. In previous court cases at other municipalities, the court has ruled that those municipalities had to reimburse the funds where community members fixed some of the issues in the various towns. The State Liability Act states that in cases when a local municipality cannot pay for services, it is referred to the district municipality. If they also can’t pay, it is referred to provincial; and if need be, it is referred to the Treasury. “There are no excuses that a municipality doesn’t have the necessary funds,” says Peens. “Constitutionally, it is illegal to retain your rates and taxes from the municipality. You can’t say that since you don’t receive the services, you aren’t going to pay your rates. In the Bergrivier case, the court ruled that if you retain your rates and taxes, you have to apply those funds for that specific service, regardless.”
He indicated that it is worth the fight to hold a municipality legally accountable. “It is easy to complain in WhatsApp groups, but what are we doing about it? We report it, but what motivation does a municipality have to fix the problem unless you hold them legally accountable for it. Just remember, the municipality works for you (the community), not the other way around.”

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The news provided to you in this link comes to you from the editorial staff of the Vryheid Herald, a sold newspaper distributed in the Vryheid area.