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Amathole community in court to demand access to water

- Lee-Anne Bruce

CALS represents over 1,200 people from villages around Toboyi in the Eastern Cape who are demanding the municipality provide access to water

Residents of three villages in the Amathole District Municipality have approached the Eastern Cape High Court with the assistance of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS). They are seeking to compel the Municipality to provide sufficient water to 1,200 people living in the area who are currently risking their health and safety by sharing water sources with animals.

Residents of the Toboyi area in the Eastern Cape – including the villages of Khomkulu-Toboyi, Merilis and Kunene – have approached the High Court for assistance. The Amathole District Municipality has failed to fulfil its constitutional obligation to supply the villages with sufficient water. Instead, residents are forced to collect rainwater or walk long distances in the dark to collect water from communal tanks, windmills, rivers and streams shared with animals.

There are approximately 1,237 people residing in the three villages in Toboyi. Roughly 40% of these residents have water tanks to collect rainwater, but the majority cannot afford to buy these tanks. The remainder are compelled to get their water from communal tanks, rivers and streams. The communal tanks have, however, reportedly not been filled by the Municipality since September 2020. Many people are forced to walk long distances to rivers and streams in the dark to get to the water before cattle and other animals.

Lack of sufficient water places everyone living in Toboyi at risk. Reports by water experts show that recurring droughts within the district coupled with poor water service delivery have left most of the residents with little to no access to water, with the main sources of water being water tanks and boreholes near rivers during the wet season. Three water samples taken from sources used in the villages demonstrated that there is a high amount of bacteria in the water and infections may occur without treatment of the water.  

Residents not only have to put their safety at risk by travelling in the dark to collect water, that water is also extremely poor quality and dangerous to their health. In addition, women and girls bear the social burden of carrying water for domestic use. Lack of access to sufficient water also presents gendered harms affecting their right to equality and right to education when girls are forced to miss school because they have no access to proper sanitation during menstruation.

Regulations made in relation to the Water Services Act set out minimum standards for basic water supply and basic sanitation. They provide that the minimum standard for basic water supply is at least 25 litres per person per day or 6 kilolitres per household per month within 200 metres of a household. Needless to say, the villages of Toboyi do not have a water supply that meets the minimum standard.

The villages have therefore approached the Eastern Cape High Court with the assistance of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), Wits University. They are asking the Court to declare that the Municipality’s failure to supply sufficient water is a dereliction of their constitutional obligations and this failure violates residents’ rights to access sufficient water. The application also asks that the Municipality be compelled to provide the villages with potable water in the short-term and an end to the water crisis in the long-term.

“It’s clear that the Municipality’s failures violate the residents’ constitutional rights to sufficient water,” says Thandeka Kathi, head of Home, Land and Rural Democracy at CALS. “But this right does not exist in isolation. Water is so central to human existence that this failure also infringes on other rights such as dignity, equality, freedom and security and education.”

CALS is represented in the matter by Adv Siphelo Mbeki and Professor Tracy-Lynn Field.  

Read our founding documents in the matter here.

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