Westville Ratepayers’ Association (WRA) Chief Volunteer Asad Gaffar (51) leads the current eThekwini rates boycott which is now heading to court and all eyes are on this impending court action by eThekwini ratepayers who want legal protection for their rates boycott. The court hearing is set for 1 November and the matter isn’t likely to be concluded soon thereafter.
WRA hope that the court action will prove that the Municipal Systems Act protects disaffected residents involved in a rates boycott from punitive action by a municipality. Gaffar maintains the city cannot disconnect lights, water and other utilities.
Once residents get wind of that, he predicts a groundswell of support.
Concerned citizens have generously backed the movement. Donors have forked out at least R600,000 for legal fees. The R704,000 that “brave” boycotters have withheld is in an account with five signatories and has a host of protocols to protect it, including that its sole beneficiary is the municipality.
At present the boycotters are skating on thin ice as without a court order, they are at risk when withholding rates, as a proper dispute in terms of Section 102 of the Municipal Systems Act is required to give the boycotters a modicum of legal protection.
In the eThekwini case on 1 November, ratepayers will seek to interdict the city from cutting off water and electricity supply to rates boycotters pending finalisation of a dispute lodged by the ratepayers in June.
Background:
30 June 2023: A group of about 100 residents, including representatives from 25 ratepayer associations across the city, from Chatsworth to Springfield Park, gathered at the Westville Civic Centre for the public meeting after the Westville Ratepayers Association declared a property rates and utility bill revolt. eThekwini chief operating officer Mavuso Tshabalala and speaker Thabani Nyawose accompanied the mayor at the meeting.
Kaunda said the city had embarked on “extensive consultation with all key stakeholders” before implementing price hikes.
“Initially, the municipality proposed an electricity tariff increase of 21.91% and after listening to your complaints we tabled a revised figure of 18.49%.”
He said the budgeted increase was “conditional” on the approval of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa). The regulator approved an increase of 15.1% for municipalities, which city spokesperson Gugu Sisilana later explained meant the city’s budgeted, conditional tariff hike increase would drop to 15.1%
The constitutional court judgment in the Liebenberg v Bergrivier Municipality matter (2013) found; “Part of paragraph 79 of the judgment reads: Local government is an important tier of public administration as any. It has to continue functioning for the common good; it, however, cannot do so efficiently and effectively if every person who has a grievance about the conduct of a public official or a governmental structure were to take the law into his or her own hands or resort to self-help by withholding payment for services rendered … It is not for the disgruntled individual to decide what the appropriate relief should be and to combine with others or take it upon himself or herself to punish the government structure by withholding payment which is due.”
At the 30 June meeting Gaffar said; “The Act [Municipal Property Rates Act of 2004] says it is illegal to withhold rates under ‘normal circumstances’ if the city is providing you with all the services, but the city was not providing all services in terms of the Act.”
The Westville Ratepayers Association says it will suspend the rates boycott if the following 11 demands are met:
- That the 2023-24 tariff be set aside
- That the 2023-24 tariff be backdated to 1 July 2023;
- The renegotiation of the 2023-24 tariff increase to make it affordable for everyone;
- Undertake a comprehensive action plan to deal with misappropriation and irregular expenditure;
- An immediate end to disconnections.
- The setting aside of rates increases on properties where residents have filed valuation appeals;
- A review of all credit agreements and a moratorium on all interest on overdue accounts;
- A simplified bill;
- Regular accurate meter reading; estimated readings must stop;
- The writing off of arrears rates owed by people over the age of 65; and
- The establishment of an oversight board comprising ratepayers and city officials within 14 days.
11 August 2023: the audit committee of eThekwini Municipality urged the metro to urgently resolve the dispute with Durban ratepayer organisations that are withholding rates payments or risk a financial crisis.
The Municipal Systems Act, 2000 at s5 requires local government, as the sphere of government closest to the people, to engage local communities in the business of government (public participation) but does not prescribe the manner in which this is to take place.
Ethekwini municipality discharges this obligation by consulting its ward committees (its own creations and therefore representative of government rather than of the public) and interpreting this consultation in terms of plans included in its Integrated Development Plan (where they remain unsullied from year to year). The community has no part to play in this system.
Podcast: Mike Wills speaks with Asad Gaffar, Westville Ratepayers Association chairperson: