THE Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is on a mission to redress the provision of water services to residents on privately owned land following a landmark court judgment in which the ministry was a respondent.
The DWS is currently holding public consultations on the Draft Policy on Water and Sanitation Services provision on Privately Owned Land.
In 2017 the Association for Rural Advancement and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) brought a class class action on behalf of farm occupiers and labour tenants residing under the jurisdiction of uMshwathi, Msunduzi and uMgungundlovu District Municipality in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
The parties sought structural relief to ensure that municipalities provide farm occupiers and labour tenants with access to sufficient water, basic sanitation and collection of refuse.
AFRA said prior to the legal application it had received nearly 200 farm dwellers and labour tenants claiming no access to basic services.
The case was brought against the uMsunduzi, uMshwathi local municipalities, uMgungundlovu District Municipality and others, and the Department of Water and Sanitation as the sixth respondent.
In its judgment ion 2019 the Pietermaritzburg High Court stated that failure by the Water Services Authorities (WSA) to provide farm occupiers and labour tenants with access to basic sanitation, sufficient water, and collection of refuse was inconsistent with the constitution.
This month the DWS started with public engagements in Limpopo and is set to continue engaging Mpumalanga stakeholders and affected parties from Monday, 23 January until Friday, 27 January. The programme forms part of the DWS national public consultations.
The DWS said in a statement “the purpose of the national consultations is to solicit input on the Draft Policy from various stakeholders and individuals who have interests in the provision of water and sanitation services to privately owned land across the country.”
“Privately-owned land is a land that is not owned, controlled, or leased by the state. This may include commercial farms, mine owned land, churches owned land, trust properties, game parks, sectional or residential complexes among others.
“The draft policy seeks to explore ways to redress the provision of water services to residents on privately owned land by ensuring that there is access to a safe and potable water supply and sanitation, supported by appropriate health and hygiene practices for the people living on those lands that are currently out of municipal distributing network, using water services intermediaries’ mechanisms as enshrined in the Water Services Act, 1997 (Act No. 108 of 1997).”
In June 2022 a joint oversight parliamentary portfolio committee on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development and the Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour heard gruesome accounts of human rights abuses on farms, which included the deliberate deprivation of water and access to water sources by private land owners to farm dwellers. – news@mukurukuru.co.za
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