Prepaid water meters are at the centre of a war for water waged by a group of informal settlement residents who will challenge Johannesburg Water in court over the lawfulness of these devices. The residents have enlisted leading constitutional lawyer Wim Trengove, SC, to fight their corner.
The case is likely to be precedent setting, with implications for municipalities and the delivery of services around the country.
It has been brought by more than 50 residents of Phiri, Soweto, which, together with Orange Farm, an informal settlement south of the city, has become the testing ground for a massive cost-recovery drive. The campaign is called Operation Gcin’amanzi and prepaid meters are its centrepiece.
Last Friday the residents sent a legal letter demanding that their water be reconnected, failing which they would commence court action. The City of Johannesburg has until Friday 13 to respond.
The residents are members of the newly formed Coalition against Water Privatisation, a social movement group. The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals) at the University of the Witwatersrand is providing the coalition with legal and research support.
Johannesburg Water, a self-contained business utility, with the city as its
sole shareholder, is driving Operation Gcin’amanzi.
Lawyers are amassing evidence to support their unprecedented attack on the meters, which they say may contravene the Constitution because the nationally allocated 6 000 litres a month of free water that they dispense for people’s needs may be insufficient. Six thousand litres gives households an estimated 40 baths a month or 500 toilet flushes.
Ahead of this rights-based case, however, the community will first argue that prepaid water meters are unlawful. The dispute concerns the residents’ claim that Johannesburg Water allegedly installed prepaid meters in Phiri without first attempting other water service-delivery options that the City of Johannesburg
by-laws stipulate. This case will be argued under the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality Water Services
By-Laws and the Water Services Act.
The reason for the decision to run with this case first is that if it succeeds it will provide immediate relief to the Phiri residents, whose water has allegedly been cut off.
Cals is representing two sets of clients from Phiri who approached the centre for legal assistance. They, in turn, are representative of other Phiri and Orange Farm residents. ”The one group were offered a choice between standpipes or prepaid water meters and refused both, so consequently have no water. The second group agreed to prepaid meters, given their limited choice, but are unhappy with them,” said Theunis Roux, head of the law and transformation programme at Cals.
Standpipes are taps that operate on a trickle system and only allow the user
6 000 litres of free water a month. The prepaid meters also provide the user the allocated free water, but this can be replenished by adding credit to a plastic key with a chip that has information needed to activate the meter.
According to Roux the municipal by-laws state that three levels of service provision need to be exhausted before prepaid meters can be installed. Service level one is communal water points, level two is an unmetered individual yard pipe and level three is a credit-metered water connection.
”Prepaid meters are unlawful in terms of the by-laws,” said Roux. ”According to the by-laws, prepaid meters are only a punitive measure for consumers who have violated the level-two standpipe option by consuming more than 6 000 litres a month or by connecting the standpipe to any other water supply.”
Cals says the Phiri residents were never offered the level-three service (credit-metered supply) and prepaid meters were installed in the area without first ”trying out” the level-two option (standpipes).
The Water Services Act requires Johannesburg Water to provide reasonable notice if it intends to limit or discontinue services. It also requires a customer’s ability to pay for services to be taken into account. ”It is impossible to satisfy these procedural requirements through the use of prepaid water meters,” said Roux. ”Using the meter system means that inability to pay results in immediate disconnection, without any space for notice or a hearing.”
The crucial difference between this case and the constitutional case is that ”the constitutional case would knock out prepaid water meters for all”.
”If this case is successful it will simply knock them out for as long as the Water Services Act exists in its current form,” said Roux.
Brian Hlongwe, chairperson of municipal services entities for the City of Johannesburg and a member of the mayoral committee,
says he is not surprised about the pending court action.
”We saw it coming. When we started installing the prepaid meters, the social movements embarked on their half-truths, half-lies campaign to try and win the support of the poorest of the poor by appealing to a bread-and-butter issue like water. We said let them — we will continue with our mandate. This is a group of people who are pursuing a long-term political agenda. All that I hope is that if this is the democracy that it claims to be, these social movements will be prepared to live with the decision of the judges.”
Nothing for mahala Voices from Orange Farm
Nellie Majola: ‘I can’t keep my food garden alive ’
Nellie Majola lives in Orange Farm. Her house number is scrawled in green chalk across her rickety door, which she keeps shut because she is asthmatic.
Her nebuliser, a steamer that she uses to clear her chest, is humming inside and the chicken drumsticks that are cooking in a large silver pot give off a strong aroma .
When she talks about her pre-paid water meter, which protrudes indiscreetly from her lawn, her forehead creases into a frown. ”I’ve tried to make a garden but I can’t keep it alive,” she says, gesturing across her arid vegetable patch where the remenants of several cabbages lie.
Her only income is her R740 monthly pension and she has four children to care for.
She says before the meter was installed she relied on a communal tap that she shared with several other households.
”I liked it that way. Now I can’t count how much money I have spent on filling that thing up,” she says, pointing to the meter.
”For those who cannot pay there is nothing for mahala [free].”
She says that although the 6 000 litres of free water each month forces her family to save — ”We only bath four times a week and wash our clothes twice a week” — it only lasts for two weeks.
In numerical terms 6 000 litres of free water represents two toilet flushes a day a person for a household of eight.
A Johannesburg Water pamphlet describes it pictorially: 6 000 litres fill one and a half taxis.
”It’s not that I don’t want to pay for the water — it’s just that I often can’t pay,” says Majola. ”Sometimes I don’t even have enough money to pay for food and school fees, so what about water?”
Margaret Mthethwa: ‘Now I can save’
There is a clutch of Orange Farm residents who say the prepaid water meters have benefited them. Margaret Mthethwa is one of them. ”I can see how much water I use and then I can save,” she says.
Smaller families seem to support the meters more than larger families do. Six thousand litres can generally serve a family of four for a month, but a larger family usually has to fork out to replenish its supply.
Mthethwa is a single mother of three children. ”The meters are cheap and I don’t get the high bills that I used to [under the flat rate system],” she explains. ”I never used to pay [those bills] but I was always scared of being cut off.”
Generally she doesn’t have to pay for water because the free supply lasts her through the month. ”We use the dish and bath water for the garden and wash our clothes on a Saturday only,” she says.
Although Mthethwa is representative of some community members who have learnt to exploit the conservation benefits of the prepaid system, most of her neighbours have been forced to trade off between transport, medicine and often food to pay for water.
Monica Mtshali: ‘We never wanted meters’
Monica Mtshali shuffles out of her dimly lit corrugated-iron shack wearing a tattered pair of blue slippers. ”From when I was born I have never bought water,” she says. ”Why now?”
Her story is representative of those of most of her neighbours — although council officials consulted her about installing meters, they never listened to her response. ”We never wanted them,” she says.
”I am no longer gardening and I can’t make a lot of washing. I start washing my clothes at 8am but the water is finished by 10am.”
She says that she doesn’t understand the free 6 000 litres. ”All I know is that I buy water once a month for R30 and then I have to save like nobody’s business.”
Mtshali complains that her piping system for her toilet is leaking, which causes substantial water losses every month.
”I have asked them [the council] to come and fix, but they say I must get someone to do it. I don’t know how much that will cost,” she says. ”I’m not working so sometimes I have no money to buy food.”
A handful of shops in the area bear the conspicuous Johannesburg Water sign. ”Refill your water here,” it reads and there is a toll-free number printed on the bottom.
”If we phone because we have no water, they ask us if we paid; if we say no they say they can’t help,” she says.
Tightening the taps