PREPAYMENT WATER METER SYSTEM UNCONSTITUTIONAL,
FREE BASIC WATER TO BE INCREASED
The Johannesburg High Court today ruled that the City of Johannesburg’s practice of forcibly installing prepayment water meters in Phiri, Soweto is unconstitutional. It also set aside the City’s decision to limit its free basic water supply to 25 litres per person per day and ordered it to provide the residents of Phiri with free basic water in the amount of 50 litres per person per day.
The City was further directed to give the residents of Phiri the option of an ordinary credit metered water supply.In a ground-breaking judgment – the first in which the constitutional right to water has explicitly been raised – Judge MP Toska criticised the municipality for its discriminatory approach to the provision of water.
The Judge found that: “the underlying basis for the introduction of prepayment meters seems to me to be credit control. If this is true, I am unable to understand why this credit control measure is only suitable in the historically poor black areas and not the historically rich white areas. Bad payers cannot be described in terms of colour or geographical area.”
The Judge stated that “25 litres per person day is insufficient for the residents of Phiri”, whom he described as “poor, uneducated, elderly, sick, ravaged by HIV/AIDS and reliant on state pensions and grants.” The judge continued that “to expect the applicants to restrict their water usage, to compromise their health, by limiting the number of toilet flushes in order to save water is to deny them the rights to health and to lead a dignified lifestyle.”
The Judge found that increasing the free basic water supply would not put significant strain on the City’s water and financial resources, especially if free basic water already supplied to rich households is redistributed to the poor.
Stuart Wilson, Head of the CALS Litigation Unit said that <“the judgment speaks volumes about the City’s approach to the poor and the vulnerable. A serious rethink of the City’s approach to poverty must now take place”.
http://dnpmakesadifference.blogspot.com/2008/05/victory-for-right-to-water.html
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