Category Archives: water

CALS: Phiri Water Rights Case in the Constitutional Court on 2 and 3 September 2009

Leave a reply

Press Release from the Centre for Applied Legal Studies
Johannesburg, 26 August 2009

Phiri Water Rights Case in the Constitutional Court on 2 and 3 September 2009

The Mazibuko appeal against the SCA judgment of 30 April 2009 will be heard in the Constitutional Court, where the applicants will argue that prepayment water meters in Phiri should be declared unlawful, and that the City’s Free Basic Water policy is insufficient to meet the basic needs of poor Phiri households.

Between 2 and 3 September 2009 the Constitutional Court will hear an appeal challenging the constitutionality and lawfulness of prepayment water meters (PPMs) and the sufficiency of the City of Johannesburg’s free basic water (FBW) allocation to poor residents in Phiri, Soweto. The Court is being asked to order the City to provide Phiri residents with a FBW supply of 50 litres per person per day, and the option of a conventional metered water supply that exists throughout Johannesburg’s richer suburbs.

The application is brought by Phiri residents who are all unemployed and living in conditions of poverty on behalf of themselves and everyone in the public interest. The five year legal battle has been supported by the Coalition Against Water Privatisation (CAWP) and the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF). The applicants are represented by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), which is a human rights research, advocacy and public interest litigation centre at the University of the Witwatersrand. The respondents are the City of Johannnesburg, Johannesburg Water (a publicly-owned water corporation) and the national Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF, now called the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs).

Since March 2004, the applicants, along with thousands of residents of Phiri, have been forced to accept standpipes (outside yard taps) or PPMs as the ‘only’ options besides complete disconnection of their previous water supply. All of the residents had previously received an unlimited amount of water for which a flat-rate was levied. With the imposition of the PPMs, the residents’ water supply is automatically disconnected when they do not have sufficient money to purchase water credit. PPMs provide none of the usual procedural protections against administrative errors and household emergencies, which are offered by conventional credit meters in the rest of Johannesburg. These protections – the purchase of water on credit with reasonable notice of being in arrears and of possible disconnections, along with an opportunity to make representations prior to disconnection – are in place in conventional water supplies precisely to avoid the Phiri situation, where people are forced to go without water because of circumstances beyond their control, including abject vulnerability and poverty.

Since the advent of PPMs – and because the FBW allocation is insufficient to meet the basic needs of multi-dwelling poor households – Phiri residents are often without water for up to two weeks each month because they cannot afford to purchase additional water credit once the inadequate FBW supply is exhausted. The applicants are asking for 50 litres of FBW per person per day, which is based on the calculation of Dr Peter Gleick, a world expert on water rights and sufficiency. Dr Gleick’s expert opinion, relied on by the United Nations’ Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, is that in conditions such as Phiri, the minimum amount of water to ensure a healthy and dignified basic standard of living is 50 litres per person per day (lpppd), broken down as follows:

* Minimum for drinking: 5 lpppd
* Basic sanitation: 20 lpppd
* Basic bathing: 15 lpppd
* Basic food preparation:10 lpppd

TOTAL 50 lpppd

According to Jackie Dugard, senior researcher at CALS, “the applicants and their support organisations believe this case to be of critical importance in securing the constitutionally-guaranteed right of access to sufficient water (section 27(1)(b) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act 108 of 1996), and socio-economic rights more generally, to poor people”.

The applicants’ counsel are Wim Trengove SC, and Nadine Fourie.

Background to the Constitutional Court appeal

* Case launched in the Johannesburg High Court, 6 July 2006

* Johannesburg High Court hearing, 3 – 5 December 2007

* High Court judgment, 30 April 2008
o PPMs unlawful and unconstitutional; City ordered to provide all similarly-positioned residents of Phiri with 50 lpppd

* Supreme Court of Appeal hearing, 23 – 25 February 2009

* Supreme Court of Appeal judgment, 25 March 2009
o PPMs unlawful (City given two years to rectify); FBW policy unreasonable (City ordered to rectify FBW policy and in interim to provide all Phiri residents on indigency register with 42 lpppd

See http://web.wits.ac.za/Academic/Centres/CALS/BasicServices/Litigation.htm for more on the Mazibuko case.

For more information contact:

Jackie Dugard: 084 240 6187 / 011 717 8619 or jackie.dugard@wits.ac.za.

West Cape News: Diarrhoea kills increasing number of under 5’s

Leave a reply

We need toilets and taps – not NGOs that want to teach us how to wash our hands…

http://www.khayelitshastruggles.com/2009/03/diarrhea-kills-increasing-number-of.html

Diarrhoea kills increasing number of under 5’s

Brenda Nkuna

The number of children under five dying of or being admitted to Western Cape hospitals for diarrhea increased for the last period in which figures are available, says the Western Cape Health Department.

Diarrhoea claimed the lives of 149 children under five years old over the 2007/2008 period. This was out of 7,790 admissions to hospitals, said provincial health spokesperson Faiza Steyn.

This comes as this summer’s gastroenteritis season – which peaks in the hot months between October and March – draws to a close. Cases increase over this period because of an increase in flies and unsanitary conditions, especially in areas where there are a lack of services.

Although not providing figures for the current year, Steyn said in the year from April 2007 to March 2008 the number of cases were larger than in previous years and “many more children” required admission for re-hydration.

However, although figures had not yet been compiled, this increase did “not necessary” apply to the 2008/2009 year, she said.

Gastroenteritis, caused by viruses, bacteria and parasites, results in mild to severe diarrhea and can cause life-threatening dehydration in young children.
Steyn blamed the increase on a higher birth rate and an increase in migration.

She said hot spot areas included Delft, Gugulethu, Kraaifontein and Khayelitsha.

In the informal settlement of QQ section in Khayelitsha, parents complain that they battle to keep their children healthy due to a lack of services.

Veliswa Sidumo, 25, an unemployed mother of a two-year-old girl, said her child had developed a bad rash and she had no choice but to keep her in her shack until her condition improved.

She said she used a variety of household cleaning products to kill germs, but this did not help when her daughter played in sand outside where she was exposed to flies, human faeces and dirty water.

She said there were no toilets in her area. People used buckets as toilets and often spilt the contents outside her shack.

Another resident, Nosibabalo Dyasi, 25, said she was concerned about the number of children playing at a dump site near her shack, because they did not wash their hands.

She said due to a lack of clean water, people thought that washing hands was a waste of water.

Dyasi, an unemployed mother of a four-year-old girl, said parents were aware of existing diseases and how to prevent them, but due to unemployment they were unable to afford cleaning products.

“It’s hard to raise children here. Their lives are in danger, but where can they go?” she asked.

Steyn said sick children should be taken to a clinic “immediately” and parents should tell staff if a child had diarrhoea.

She said parents should continue feeding their child while sick. But they should make sure bottles and teats were clean.

They should wash hands after changing nappies, before preparing food and before feeding, she said. — West Cape News

CAWP: ANC Flushes the Hopes of Thousands of Desperate KwaMasiza Hostel Residents Down the Drain

Leave a reply

COALITION AGAINST WATER PRIVATISATION
PRESS STATEMENT
Monday 2nd March 2009

ANC FLUSHES THE HOPES OF THOUSANDS OF DESPERATE KWA-MASIZA HOSTEL RESIDENTS DOWN THE DRAIN

WHAT KIND OF POLITICS AND ‘MORAL VALUES’ ARE ON DISPLAY WHEN THE THOSE MOST IN NEED ARE TOLD THEY CANNOT EVEN HAVE DECENT ACCESS TO THE MOST BASIC NEED OF ALL?

Last week the ANC-run Emfuleni Municipality, together with its water utility – Metsi A Lekoa – called a community mass meeting at Kwa Masiza hostel in Sebokeng. Residents came in their droves thinking that an announcement would finally be made about kick-starting the municipality’s long awaited water provision project for the hostel. Instead, local ANC councillor M. Maqutyana and municipal official responsible for water and sanitation, Jonny Thabane told residents that even those residents who are accessing municipally-supplied piped water must “conserve’ that water and not use more than 25 litres of water per person/per day. When residents protested, they told them to vote for the ANC again (for a fourth time) if they wanted to have long-term and sustainable access to water.

This is nothing less than a political, constitutional and moral outrage. Thousands of Kwa Masiza residents have been struggling for years to have decent access to what is a basic constitutional and human right. In 2002, the Municipality cut off all water access to the hostel in a brutal and inhumane attempt to evict residents illegally. This cut-off continued until early 2008 – in the process, causing massive infrastructural degradation/damage to water pipes and pressure valves and forcing residents to forage for water and live in horrendously unhygienic conditions – when hostel residents supported by CAWP succeeded in getting the municipality to restore water access to most of the hostel. The ANC municipality then promised residents that their constitutional and legislative rights to full water access, along with necessary infrastructural repairs, would be forthcoming.

Instead, a year later and in the midst of endless electoral promises about how the ANC will deliver and improve the poors basic needs/services, the hopes of the long suffering Kwa Masiza residents have, literally, been flushed down the drain. What kind of message is being sent when poor people (who have waited so patiently and with such dignity, for basic service delivery) are effectively told that they must continue to live in squalor and are not important enough to have basic sanitation, but be content to use the nearby veld? What kind of politics and political party is it that can be so cynical and lacking in human empathy?

CAWP, together with hostel residents and local community organisations in the Vaal will be meeting tomorrow (Tuesday 3rd March @ 17h00) at the Kwa-gas Community hall in Sebokeng hostel to decide on how to collectively respond to this outrage.

DOWN WITH POLITICAL AND ‘MORAL’ HYPOCRISY!

For further comment and/or information please contact:

CAWP organiser – Patrick “Patra” Sindane @ 073 052 7005

Business Day: Jo’burg to challenge Phiri water ruling

Leave a reply

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A945064

Posted to the web on: 23 February 2009
Jo’burg to challenge Phiri water ruling
Franny Rabkin

THE Supreme Court of Appeal will today begin a hearing on the constitutionality of the installation and use of prepaid water meters in Phiri, Soweto. At issue is the constitutional right of access to sufficient water.

At stake for the City of Johannesburg is “the foundation of its water policy”, which has cost the city billions to implement, and is aimed at ensuring everyone has access to some form of water supply.

At stake for the residents of Phiri is suffering from having water for only a limited time in a month.

The case is the first to deal with state obligations to provide access to sufficient water. When it was heard first in the Johannesburg High Court, Judge Moroa Tsoka asserted the “minimum core” concept (that in dealing with socioeconomic rights, government should be measured against a minimum standard of delivery), rejected previously by the Constitutional Court.

Some Phiri residents have been fighting the installation of prepaid meters since the City’s Gcin’amanzi programme was first implemented in 2001.

Prepaid meters stop dispensing water when the limit on free water is reached, and lets taps run again only if the user buys water credits and loads them into their meter.

Five Phiri residents say installation and continued use of prepaid meters is unconstitutional, and breaches rights of access to sufficient water, just administrative action and equality.

Before prepaid water meters were installed, Soweto residents had unlimited access to water at a flat rate. People in affluent suburbs had metered water with monthly bills.

The city said the flat rate was not sustainable as it made it impossible to account for “about 75% of all water pumped into Soweto”. So it introduced Operation Gcin’amanzi, giving all households 6kl of free water a month. The rest had to be paid for.

Last year, the Phiri residents won their case in the Johannesburg High Court. The city is now appealing to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Tsoka ordered that Phiri residents be supplied with 50l of free basic water a person a day, up from the current 25l, and that they be given a choice of an ordinary credit water meter. The judge said it was inexplicable that some residents were entitled to water on credit, including the free monthly 6kl a household, while Phiri residents were denied water on credit.

But the City will argue before the Supreme Court of Appeal that Tsoka’s order “will have extremely far-reaching and grave consequences” for its water policy.

Gilbert Marcus and Anthony Stein, counsel for the city, set out in detail how the city developed its water policy, which the city says focused on achieving access for all, including those in informal settlements with no access to water.

The city says that the residents of Phiri are better off now than they were when paying the flat rate.

This is because they pay less now than under the previous flat rate; the cost of their water is cross-subsidised by wealthier users; and they now have access to free water, which they never had before.

The City also says that, since the introduction of the programme, it has increased the allocation of free water for “registered indigents” and people with HIV/AIDS and provides a certain amount for emergencies.

In this way, says the city, it has discharged its obligation to progressively realise the right of access to sufficient water.

But Wim Trengove and Nadine Fourie, counsel for the residents, say the residents are worse off now, making the introduction of the prepaid meters retrogressive. This is because they simply cannot afford to pay once they have used their free water. So the prepaid meters breach the obligation of the state not to move them down the water ladder, the residents say.

They also argue that because water is allocated per stand instead of per person, poor people end up with less free water than rich people. This is because their stands generally accommodate more people, and unemployment means people get all their water use from home.

But the City says that it would be impossible to provide water for individuals as the number of people in each stand is in constant flux.

The residents also say prepaid meters were forced on them, and they were not given the option of the credit meters that wealthier white suburbs have. This is discriminating against the Phiri residents, who are in the main poor and black.

Richard Moultrie and Sesi Baloyi, counsel for the friend of the court, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, argue that the constitution should be interpreted in accordance with international law on the right to water.

They say that while SA has not accepted the minimum core concept into its jurisprudence, what constitutes a minimum core internationally is an important factor when considering whether or not government’s measures are reasonable.

Phiri Water Rights Case Goes to the Supreme Court of Appeal

Leave a reply

MEDIA ALERT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Centre for Applied Legal Studies

Johannesburg, 18 February 2009

PHIRI WATER RIGHTS CASE GOES TO THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL

Mazibuko case, which was won in the Johannesburg High Court, is on appeal in the SCA, 23-25 February 2009

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) will, between 23 and 25 February 2009, hear an appeal against the Johannesburg High Court’s April 2008 decision banning prepayment water meters. The appellants – the City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg Water (Pty) Ltd. and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry – are appealing the whole of the High Court decision.

The High Court decision (Mazibuko and Others v City of Johannesburg and Others 2008 (4) SA 471 (W)), handed down by Judge Moroa Tsoka on 30 April 2008, was a landmark judgment on socio-economic rights in which the Judge ruled that the City of Johannesburg’s practice of forcibly installing prepayment water meters in Phiri, Soweto is unconstitutional. It also set aside the City’s decision to limit its free basic water supply to 25 litres per person per day and ordered it to provide the residents of Phiri with free basic water in the amount of 50 litres per person per day. The City was further directed to give the residents of Phiri the option of an ordinary credit metered water supply.

In a ground-breaking judgment – the first in which the constitutional right to water has explicitly been raised – Judge MP Tsoka criticised the municipality for its discriminatory approach to the provision of water. The Judge found that: “the underlying basis for the introduction of prepayment meters seems to me to be credit control. If this is true, I am unable to understand why this credit control measure is only suitable in the historically poor black areas and not the historically rich white areas. Bad payers cannot be described in terms of colour or geographical area.”

The Judge also found that the consultation leading up to the adoption of prepayment meters was inadequate, stating that the process was “more of a publicity stunt than consultation”. He also criticised the City’s “big brother approach” to the residents of Phiri.

The Judge stated that “25 litres per person day is insufficient for the residents of Phiri”, whom he described as “poor, uneducated, elderly, sick, ravaged by HIV/AIDS and reliant on state pensions and grants.” The judge continued that “to expect the applicants to restrict their water usage, to compromise their health, by limiting the number of toilet flushes in order to save water is to deny them the rights to health and to lead a dignified lifestyle.” The Judge found that increasing the free basic water supply would not put significant strain on the City’s water and financial resources, especially if free basic water already supplied to rich households is redistributed to the poor.

Senior researcher at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) and part of the respondents’ legal team, Jackie Dugard said:

It has been a long hard road for our clients and their support organisations such as the Anti-Privatisation Forum and the Coalition Against Water Privatisation. The High Court judgment was not only a victory for them, but for all poor South Africans. Judge Tsoka showed that socio-economic rights have teeth. His judgment shows a careful and sensitive understanding of the law, the City’s obligations, but above all our clients’ lives. We are confident the SCA will affirm our clients’ rights.

The respondents’ counsel are Wim Trengove, SC and Nadine Fourie.

For more information, contact: Jackie Dugard on 084 240 6187 or Dale McKinley of the Coalition Against Water Privatisation on 072 429 4086