A landmark judgement by the Gauteng High Court sitting in eMalahleni, Mpumalanga paves the way for citizens to approach courts to force municipalities to deliver services. The court has ordered that the municipality and the provincial government provide basic services to the residents as enshrined in the constitution.
The “Save eMalahleni Action Group” took the matter to court. eMalahleni is one of many cash-strapped municipalities.
eMalahleni is Mpumalanga’s economic hub. It is home to a cluster of twelve coal fired power plants with a total capacity of over 32 gigawatts. The power plants are owned and operated by Eskom and there are also coal mining activities in the municipality.
However, it’s been plagued by rampant corruption and maladministration. Service delivery has suffered.
“They denied that there is a crisis, the province teamed up with them and said there is no crisis and said there is no reason for them to intervene. This all against the background of an Eskom debt escalating from some R1.8 to R2 billion last year, to about R2. 5 billion now, we obtained a court order against them in terms of section 139. 5, now this is the first time that a community took a province on and got an order to compel them to comply with their constitutional obligations,” says Save Emalahleni Action Group’s Johan Cotzee.
“We started by protesting, blocking all the roads and burning tyres and affecting the whole community on a daily basis but we discovered that we did not achieve anything. Whenever we have such a protest or hand a petition to someone else, that petition will end up in a dust bin,” added the group’s Sam Nape.
The municipality attributes some challenges to non-payment for services problem, it says is caused partly by a dysfunctional electricity billing system.
The provincial government is lending a helping hand following the court intervention.
“Amongst the measures that we need to put in place is to ensure that there is a financial recovery plan within that space and we can say that we have dispatched a team to the eMalahleni municipality, the team is composed of the provincial leadership and also the national leadership,” says Mpumalanga’s premier Refilwe Mtshweni.
Four other embattled municipalities in the province are also receiving attention. They include Govan Mbeki, Lekwa, Thaba Chweu and Msukaligwa.
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