BETHAL – Obtaining a court order to force a state organ to render a certain service does not necessarily mean that this order will ever be implemented.
According to Prof Koos Malan, an expert on constitutional law, such court orders are oftentimes never implemented due to the financial inability and lack of expertise in the state organ, such as a municipality.
Prof Malan is a professor of public law at the University of Pretoria and holds the degrees BA (Pret) BA Hons (Political Science) (Pret) BIuris (Unisa) LLB (Unisa) LLD (Unisa).
The question on the lips most residents of the Govan Mbeki Municipality have about the pending water crisis is this: What of my basic human right to have access to clean water as stated in the Constitution?
Prof Malan explained that oftentimes that which is stipulated in the Constitution even so-called guaranteed rights are very often rendered a dead letter. This is often the case in present-day South Africa.
“There is no doubt that the Govan Mbeki Municipality has a contractual agreement with Rand Water to pay for the services supplied and the service provider cannot be blamed for taking drastic measures in collecting their outstanding debts.
“It is also then understandable that the public, being under distress as a result of the failures of local government will have to make his own plan to obtain water, an utter necessity to sustain life.
“In this emergency situation, it will thus be reasonable for the residents to side-step the municipality and ask for water directly from the supplier.”
Prof Malan suggests that the community unite – immaterial of race, religion or political affiliation – and as a collective seek the help of a citizen’s rights organisation, such as AfriForum to fight on their behalf.
“There are such organisations that have legal and technical experts who can enable a community to receive water directly from Rand Water.”
Also read:
https://www.citizen.co.za/ridge-times/131115/eskom-rand-water-accounts-payment-due-end-january/
