Who and what is AfriForum?

AfriForum is an Afrikaans civil rights organisation that protects the rights of minority groups at national as well as provincial level, and anyone who can identify with AfriForum’s principles and objectives may join the organisation. AfriForum’s community plan focuses on mobilising communities to thus take control of their own streets and neighbourhoods again. AfriForum ensures that your constitutional and civil rights are recognised and protected at national level.

Wie en wat is AfriForum?

AfriForum is ’n Afrikaanse burgerregteorganisasie wat die regte van minderheidsgroepe op sowel nasionale as provinsiale vlak beskerm, en enigiemand wat met AfriForum se beginsels en doelstellings kan identifiseer, mag by die organisasie aansluit. AfriForum se gemeenskapsplan fokus daarop om gemeenskappe te mobiliseer om só weer beheer terug te neem oor hul eie strate en woonbuurtes. AfriForum verseker dat jou grondwetlike én burgerregte op nasionale vlak erken en beskerm word.

Dysfunctional ANC-led municipality in Free State finally held accountable for R1 billion water debt

Soundbite: Marais de Vaal (English)

Soundbite: Marais de Vaal (Afrikaans)

Municipal managers across the country can no longer hide behind bankrupt municipalities to escape accountability for mismanagement and obstruction of the law. This is the precedent set by the Free State High Court’s landmark judgment ordering the dysfunctional Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality to repay more than R1 billion owed to the Department of Water and Sanitation, says AfriForum.

Significantly, the court ruled that the municipal manager will be held personally liable if the municipality fails to comply with the court order. Part 1 of this order involves an instalment plan which stipulates that 11% of the Maluti-a-Phofung Municipality’s equitable share allocation must be reserved for repayment of the debt. If the Municipality fails to comply with this plan, the municipal manager will be held personally liable in accordance with part 2 of the court order. According to AfriForum, the precedent of personal liability is long overdue. For too long, communities have borne the consequences of failed leadership while those responsible walked away unscathed. This judgment makes it clear that the law will now follow individuals who undermine service delivery and financial stability.

“Municipal managers must know they will face the consequences when they squander resources and cripple service delivery,” says Marais de Vaal, AfriForum’s Advisor for Environmental Affairs.

This case also highlights the extent of dysfunction within local government. The debt was decades in the making due to collapsed billing systems, failed collections and unchecked irregular expenditure. National government allowed these failures to fester, while the Department of Water and Sanitation only approached the courts in 2017. It has taken eight years for accountability to materialise – years in which communities were left without reliable services and their right to access to water was violated.

While repayment will now come from the Municipality’s equitable share allocation from National Treasury, this means other essential services may be cut. Once again, it is communities that will carry the burden of municipal neglect.

“Justice has finally prevailed in Maluti-a-Phofung. The rights of communities to receive the services they are constitutionally entitled to, and even pay for, is exactly what AfriForum and civil society fight for. From the recent order for provincial intervention in the Ngwathe Local Municipality to the court’s scrapping of the City of Tshwane’s unlawful cleansing levy, these cases all show that when government fails, it falls to communities to demand accountability,” concludes De Vaal.