Although it may appear as though nothing is happening, we are like ducks who appear calm and unruffled on the surface but are paddling like crazy underwater.
When we initially started working on the GUTs legal process we had a specific strategy in mind, as proposed by the NBU. The idea was to repair and upgrade our own infrastructure with money we can legally withhold (due to TWKM’s non-promulgation of property rates in 2 years). The strategy worked very well for the NBU, until a municipality in the Northern Cape threw a spanner in the works and obtained a court order to prevent the town’s Ratepayers Association from working on municipal infrastructure. The NBU is currently fighting a major court case against the municipality and the verdict is expected shortly. Until we get this verdict, we are like a dog that chased a car and then caught it – the question is what do we do with it? So, we have all the legal rights to withhold tax money, but we will not be able to do anything with that money at this stage.
It has always been our strategy that we will build our disputes only on watertight cases and we want to stay out of the courts at all costs. Because we have limited funds, we can afford to legally protect our members, but not fund court cases. We also do not want to reinvent the wheel with our actions but stick to proven strategies instead.
What GUTs can of course still help its members with is with personal disputes about bills and services they are not receiving. We are also undertaking other actions that are unrelated to tax disputes, e.g. last month GUTs hosted an official from the Department of Environmental Affairs, who was alerted to potential sewage contamination during the floods by the GUTs lawyer. GUTs asked members to forward any evidence of environmental contamination to us, which we then forwarded. Several issues were brought to his attention, not all of which were necessarily under his remit, but he said he would forward them to the relevant authorities:
- flood waters in Greyton with a pronounced sewage smell;
- lack of leiwatersloot maintenance leading to flooding;
- delays in emptying septic tanks;
- raw sewage bubbling out of the ground from broken pipes in Genadendal;
- raw sewage flowing from Voorstekraal into the RSE river;
- Madiba Park’s toilets being vandalised and residents using a nearby field to do their ablutions;
- lack of adequate storm water drainage;
- Municipality not posting the latest drinking water test results outside the Greyton offices. The last set of results, which were for January, showed high levels of E.Coli and have since been removed from outside the Greyton Municipal Offices.
The Department of Environmental Affairs will investigate all issues and are in a position to issue directives to TWKM. If they are not implemented they can take action, including jailing the Municipal Manager. They can’t use their usual excuse that they don’t have the funds, they will have to redirect it from elsewhere. We have already received a letter saying that they have already engaged TWKM regarding most of these issues.
GUTs feels that this is a very useful angle of attack and encourages members to bring all instances of violations of Health and Environmental Acts to our attention.
GUTs is also affiliated with the other Ratepayers and Residents associations in TWK and was invited to attend a meeting with Minister Anton Bredell (the Western Cape Provincial Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning) and other officials. Several issues were raised, e.g.:
- the lack of public participation in the 2023/24 Budget process, particularly the last-minute introduction of the R5 infrastructure levy per service. The Minister advised that the public participation legislation was very vague, and that pursuant to a recent court judgement the government has been given 2 years to revise the whole process. We subsequently received a letter from the Minister stating that they had already contacted the Deputy Mayor of TWKM to address several matters to improve their public participation processes and broaden it beyond just the Ward Committee. Currently TWKM refuses to engage with the public outside of the Ward Committee, and even expects GUTs to submit its input via GRRO which has a seat on Greyton Council.
- ratepayers wanted to know just how bad things had to get before the Western Cape government would intervene in the administration of TWKM, as per section 139 of the Constitution. The Minister advised that the municipality would have to be totally dysfunctional and that we “were very far from that”. In addition the Constitution recognises the right of municipalities to govern their own affairs and that in the spirit of co-operative governance they are first expected to help the municipality get back on its feet.
- the Minister was very concerned that the Rate in the Rand (applied to your property valuation to determine rates due) in TWKM was out of line with regional municipalities and too expensive. He said that we should focus on that as it’s the only factor “under our control”. He didn’t have any suggestions on how to protest this, other than using our right to public participation, which we know TWKM ignores.
- the Minister said that TWKM is a “low capacity” municipality and said that we shouldn’t expect the same level of service as “high capacity” Muni’s like Cape Town. His department has drawn up comprehensive Service Level Agreements for 17 of the 24 Municipalities in the Western Cape which detail the expected standards for services as well as the turnaround times. This would help manage residents’ expectations and also facilitate performance measurement of the Muni. They haven’t done one yet for TWKM, but apparently they have to offer the service and get “buy-in” before they can do this.
- the Minister advised that the national government was engaging in a cost-cutting exercise and that the Western Cape’s grants were being reduced by R2.8bn. He stated that municipalities would have to use their limited resources more effectively.
According to the follow-up letter received, the Minister has contacted the Mayor and Deputy Mayor to suggest a meeting where they can discuss developing a support plan if required. His department will also monitor the implementation of their suggestions re improving the public participation process. Apparently the Municipality has also “expressed a commitment to continue engaging your Association on the matters raised as unresolved”.
So far, we have noticed a vast improvement in sewage pumping turnaround times, apparently some people have received same day service! A GUTs representative also recently engaged the town’s management w.r.t subsidising the painting of Greyton’s roads, but we noticed that they did this on their own initiative shortly thereafter.
Also, this week GUTs sent an objection to TWKM regarding the Proposal to Lease with the Option to Buy portions of Erf 595 GREYTON for the establishment of an agricultural development. GUTs is of the view that this proposal is at odds with the original intentions of the gifting of this land for community use only.
In conclusion, we admit that we are still “green” at this, and of course could not anticipate all the challenges in this David vs. Goliath battle. It was nevertheless a brave attempt by the existing management committee to make themselves available and stick their heads into these beehives in an effort to save our town from ruin. In the meantime, we learn every day and have already gained a lot of knowledge and are gaining a better understanding of how we will have to go about getting positive results in the future.
The biggest challenges at this stage are the lack of involvement of the larger community, zero interest and participation of the inhabitants of Heuwelkroon, little support from other community organisations and even open hostility from other “leaders” towards the GUTs initiative. We also have a great need for more help with GUTs’ management, e.g. administration, social media monitoring, financial analysis, accounting, municipal knowledge etc.
Finally, the GUTs accounts are open for inspection at any time.
