- A DA legal letter of demand has been served on Thembisile Hani, over the ongoing water crisis.
- The municipality is violating a basic human right, and has ignored a Human Rights Commission’s directive for over 3 years.
- The DA gives Thembisile Hani 14 days to reply, to secure access to water on a daily basis, and the DA will fight for this.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has put the Thembisile Hani Municipality on legal terms, after serving a legal letter of demand, demanding the Municipality to declare its plans to rectify its water crisis within 14 days.
For over three years the municipality has ignored the SA Human Rights Commission’s direct instructions and binding directions to act on a plan to address its violation of the rights of residents to access water.
Since November 2021 the Thembisile Hani Municipality, under ANC leadership, has dismissed and ignored the SAHRC report, which is unlawful. The DA is now taking legal action to force the Municipality to comply with the SAHRC and to get water to the people who have a right to it.
This SAHRC report, findings and corrective directions came after DA Councillor Joseph Sibanyoni, laid the complaint on behalf of the community who had reached a water supply crisis and could get no help from the municipality. The SAHRC declared Thembisile Hani municipality to be violating the fundamental human rights of residents, by denying them water.
Currently, and three years after the SAHRC directives, thousands of residents of this municipality are left with no choice but to continue buying water for private sources at outrageously inflated prices.
The only supply of water available is on a rotational basis and through water trucks which may or may not arrive weekly or bi-weekly, and thousands of poor residents cannot enough water between these water truck arrivals.
Ongoing water projects aimed at addressing water challenges are being hopelessly mismanaged, and the ANC administration cancelled a water infrastructure project that was meant to drill, refurbish and equip boreholes after over R2 million was already spent on the project.
The DA’s letter of demand not only enforces the SA Human Rights Commission findings and remedial directions, but also makes the Constitutional case that residents of Thembisile Hani should be entitled to at least 25 litres of water per person per day or 6 kilolitres per household per month. And the DA will fight to make sure that this is done.
The DA is taking this action because enough is enough: residents must enjoy access to this fundamental human right, and a failing ANC municipality shall not stand in the way. Our legal team is awaiting the municipality’s reply, with a revised plan on this matter, within 14 days.