A 2019 precedent setting high court ruling compelled municipalities to provide farm dwellers with clean drinking water and provide access to dignified sanitation. However very little has changed for some farm residents.
THEMBA Mabaso and his siblings walk about 150m through grassland towards a lake south of their homestead. They each carry plastic buckets as they walk in single file through a footpath twisting through tall grass and some thorn trees.
They stand at the edges of the lake in single file with the little ones lining up behind Themba. He lowers a bucket into the lake and draws some water which he deposits into another container. The water gives off a putrid, foul smell. It looks greenish with creepy crawlies dancing in it as it fills into the bucket.
“This water stinks and it’s dirty. But this is the water we have to drink everyday,” says Themba who was born on the farm Volksrust near Glencoe in KwaZulu-Natal.
This is their daily life, a hard life of struggle and deprivation they have to endure despite being protected by the law.
The Mabaso family are long term farm dwellers whose tenure is protected under the Extension of Security Act of 1997.
As long-term occupiers of the land, the Mabaso have rights to remain under the Extension of Security of Tenure Act 62 of 1997. The act seeks, partly, “to provide for measures with state assistance to facilitate long-term security of land tenure; to regulate the conditions of residence on certain land; to regulate the conditions on and circumstances under which the right of persons to reside on land may be terminated”.
Together with the Dlamini family who also reside on the farm and are long term occupiers, they do not receive any municipal services from the Endumeni Local Municipality and the uMzinyathi District Municipality.
The Endumeni Local Municipality was contacted to provide clarity on why the families are not receiving services and whether there are plans to do so. The enquiry was elevated to the uMzinyathi District Municipality which is the water authority in the area. However there was no comment forthcoming at the time of publishing.
In 2019 the Pietermaritzburg High Court ruled that municipalities should provide farm dwellers and tenants with adequate sanitation, water and refuse collection.
https://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAKZPHC/2019/52.html
That case was brought by the Association for Rural Advancement and the Legal Resources Centre as a class action on behalf of farm occupiers and labour tenants residing under the jurisdiction of the uMshwathi, Msunduzi and uMgungundlovu district municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.
During the case presided over by judge Jerome Mnguni the court heard that “the main thrust of their [applicants] complaint is that farm occupiers and labour tenants, particularly those represented in the present application, do not have access to sufficient water, basic sanitation, refuse collection services and a clean environment in general on the farms where they reside.”
“There is no formal sanitation nor sufficient water supply on the farms where they live. They also do not have decent toilets. Some farm occupiers and labour tenants have dug pit latrines next to their homes, but these makeshift toilets are smelly and attract flies and vermin. Others have to go to the nearest bush in order to relieve themselves. The surroundings of their homesteads are dirty with rubbish everywhere due to the absence of refuse collection services.”
Judge Mnguni found in his judgment that “the respondents ongoing and persistent failure to provide the farm occupiers and labour tenants who are residing within areas of their jurisdiction with access to basic sanitation, sufficient water and collection of refuse is inconsistent with the Constitution.”
He directed the respondents install “a sufficient number of water user connections to supply a minimum quantity of potable water of 25 litres per person per day or 6 kilolitres per household per month to farm occupiers and labour tenants residing within areas of their jurisdiction” and “ensure “that the water user connections supply water at a minimum flow rate of not less than 10 litres per minute; and that the water user connections supplied are within 200 metres of the farm occupier’s households.”
However despite this ruling, in September the SA Human Rights Commission found that the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government had violated the rights of citizens by consistently failing to provide regular clean drinking water.
The report was the result of a five-day provincial inquiry into access to water in KZN from 15 to 19 August 2022.
https://www.sahrc.org.za/home/21/files/Limpopo%20Water%20Report.pdf
Among its findings the SAHRC noted that it “finds unacceptable the failure of the state, 28 years post-apartheid, to transform colonial and apartheid-era spatial planning to benefit previously excluded and disadvantaged communities. The violation of rights evidenced in complaints received and submission made are indicative of a gross dereliction of duty on the part of municipalities and WSAs to enact reasonable measures to deliver on rights and fulfil their obligations to communities, in flagrant disregard of international, constitutional, and statutory obligations imposed on the state.”
Apart from the water issues, the Dlamini are worried about their tenure security following longstanding rumours and unconfirmed reports that the farm was being sold.
They must also endure blasting at the two mines and complain that they are being denied access to some of the land and access roads. Their homes, some built of rocks, have gaping cracks, which are blamed on the mining activity.
This case highlights the plight of thousands of farm labour tenants across the country, which is still grappling with land restitution and reform issues.
In March last year, a report presented to joint parliamentary portfolio committees highlighted that unequal power relationships, uneven competition for land, a lack of political power and no tenure security were key issues facing farm labour tenants and dwellers.
The report, titled A Diagnostic Report on the Tenure Security of Labour Tenants in South Africa and written by Dr Donna Hornby and Michael Cowling on behalf of the Association for Rural Advancement, was commissioned for a high-level panel that is assessing key legislation and the acceleration of fundamental change by Parliament.
“Labour tenants have generations of skills and success at small-scale farming. The redistribution of white-owned commercial farmland to black small-scale farmers will help to drive agrarian transformation,” the report states.
Newcastle-based social activist Lucky Shabalala, who runs Sisonke Environmental Justice Network, says the group is planning a march to the Endumeni Local Municipality in Glencoe next month to highlight the family’s plight.
He has engaged local authorities, which have revealed that the farm is not for sale.
Another rumour has it that the state has been engaged in efforts to try to buy it for the Dlaminis. But this is not supported by any documentary evidence either.
Dlamini, now in his 70s, is worried.
“I’m old now. And I don’t know where we stand with regard to this farm.
“It has become our only home because we have been here a long time. Now we hear it is being sold.
“What about our graves? I have 15 people buried here. When they move people they also dig up the graves. That, in our culture, is unacceptable,” he says. – news@mukurukuru.co.za
