Protesters marching against the Johannesburg City Council’s installation of pre-paid water meters on Tuesday refused to hand over their memorandum of grievances and demands to anyone other than the mayor, Amos Masondo.
It was the sixth time in a row that Masondo had failed to turn up to collect a memorandum from the Anti-Privatisation Forum, said organiser Trevor Ngwane.
It will now concentrate on building up its power base to force him down ”from the high horse where we put him”, said Ngwane.
Masondo knows their demands, he just does not care, charged Ngwane.
”Clearly he takes our memorandum and throws it in the dustbin,” he said, adding: ”If he is interested in the memorandum, he should come to us.”
Masondo’s spokesperson, Zandile Nkuta, said on Tuesday that Masondo had been looking forward to receiving the memorandum and regretted it had not been delivered.
”Senior officials from the office of the mayor were on site to receive it on his behalf,” she said.
It is council policy to send all memoranda to the multiparty petitions and public participation committee, which arranges meetings with the parties involved about their concerns.
Community Initiative Development Forum deputy chairperson Mariam Jacobs said march organisers had notified Masondo’s office of their plans two weeks ago.
”All of a sudden he had another appointment. He didn’t notify us.”
The people are angry, she said.
Apart from halting installation of the meters, the Eldorado Park-based Community Initiative Development Forum wants water and electricity arrears scrapped in suburbs south of Johannesburg — just as they were in Soweto — amid billing problems and evictions, she said.
According to the police, about 400 people marched from Mary Fitzgerald Square to the Civic Centre in Braamfontein to hand over the memorandum on Tuesday.
Instead, they kept the memorandum and left about 20 water and electricity meters on the paving outside the building.
The protesters accused the city council of ”arrogance and brutality” in ”forcefully” implementing the system against residents’ wishes with the ”complicity” of the police.
They are demanding:
- an immediate halt to the installation of the meters;
- the right to free, clean water;
- removal of meters already installed;
- a halt to the privatisation of water services; and
- the cancellation of contracts with water multinationals.
In response, the council on Tuesday said water utility Johannesburg Water is fully-owned by the council and not privatised.
”Almost all households in Johannesburg have access to clean water,” said Nkuta.
Pre-paid meters are effective in ensuring residents receive the free 6 000 litres of water to which they are entitled.
”This installation was done after much consultation in a process which began in 2003,” she said.
In Phiri, Soweto, 98% of residents had agreed to have the meters installed, and already the average payment in households with meters has dropped from the previously fixed rate of R128 a month to R25 a month.
”We have no intention of stopping the installation of pre-paid meters for as long as this improves the quality of life of the people of Johannesburg,” she said. — Sapa