GOOD Statement by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament:
The GOOD Party has applied to join the South African Property Owners Association’s litigation to have elements of Cape Town’s new tariff regime declared unconstitutional as an intervening party.
This follows the City opposing, on vexingly hypocritical grounds, GOOD’s application to join the action as a Friend of the Court. According to Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, opposition parties should fight their political battles in government chambers, not in the courts – despite his party being serial litigants against democratically endorsed rules and regulations of government.
GOOD represents a different constituency to the property owners represented by SAPOA, and introduces different arguments in its papers, but seeks similar relief: Cape Town’s newly introduced fixed water, sanitation and City-wide cleaning tariffs are unlawful.
By imposing fixed charges that are not based on consumption or use, but on property value, the tariffs don’t comply with Section 74(2) of the Systems Act which requires that the “amount individual users pay for services should generally be in proportion to their use of that service”. The word, “general” does not imply the freedom to de-link charges from services, altogether. If it did, this provision would not exist.
The City-wide cleaning tariff, further, subverts the “polluter pays” principle contained in the National Environmental Management Act.
City spin-doctors led by the Mayor have sought to trumpet the narrative that their new tariffs are redistributive in nature, to the benefit of the poor.
That is demonstratively false, GOOD points out in its court papers, citing the example of residents of the Kalk Bay Flats, a working-class neighbourhood battling to cope in a strong tide of gentrification. They don’t have money to spare, despite the values of their properties having increased.
These are descendants of the original Kalk Bay fishing community, which survived forced removal under the Group Areas Act but fear they won’t be able to survive Hill-Lewis.
The Kalk Bay Flats example practically demonstrates that property values don’t necessarily indicate owners’ means and income.
Before this year’s budget came into effect, residents of Block 1 of Fishermen’s Flats were billed a fixed water charge of R211.44 (ex VAT), based on the connection
size. When the adopted budgeting came into effect, fixed water charges increased by 1400% while water consumption remained the same. On top of that, residents must cough up R1536.26 (ex VAT) for sewerage.
In his responding papers Hill-Lewis said: “The fact that the municipal bills of a small, select group of the residents of the Fishermen’s Flats may be increasing under the Budget does not add anything more to the debate on the legality of the steps taken by the City and the evidence that is already before court.”
GOOD wants the court to order the City to pay its legal costs, including the costs of two counsel.
GOOD Manifesto on Skills Training: Emphasizing the importance of skills training for the workforce.
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