After several months of potholed roads, broken street lights and raw sewerage spewing into his yard, accountant Johan Gräbe had enough. He decided to start fixing the mess himself, using rates money he withheld from Kamiesberg municipality.
Within three weeks Gräbe had a team of 29, all residents of Koingnaas, a Northern Cape town. Work groups filled potholes with 50 tonnes of concrete, fixed a sewerage leak and hoisted street lights back into place.
But last week the municipality halted the rescue effort with a court interdict preventing residents from delivering their own municipal services, no matter that they are urgently required.
The former “private” mining town, which was handed over to Kamiesberg municipality by De Beers in 2016, is in service delivery free-fall, according to locals.
The sewerage treatment plant is leaking, potholes are deepening, and rubbish is overflowing into the Namakwa National Park where it is eaten by wild animals.
“We have a community that wants to work and now we’ve been stopped by a court order,” said Gräbe. “I don’t think people realise just how bad things are in these small towns.”
The Koingnaas standoff reflects alarm at the state of municipal services in much of the country, where many residents are rallying together to fix crumbling infrastructure.
A notable example is Reddersberg, 60km south of Bloemfontein, which is effectively managed by residents who stopped paying rates three years ago. In that case the municipality hasn’t stopped them.
The residents of Sannieshof in the North West also took matters into their own hands before a court order prevented them paying their rates into a collective account to fund repairs.
Though efforts to withhold rates and taxes have been declared illegal by the Constitutional Court, the National Taxpayers’ Union is leading fightback against defunct municipalities by civil society.
20km: Pipeline distance from nearest municipal water supply point in Hondeklipbaai
1,000: Koingnaas population at the town’s height as a dormitory diamond-mining town
105: Town’s estimated current population
— IN NUMBERS
Chair Jaap Kelder said the organisation would help Koingnaas residents to appeal the provisional interdict handed down by the Kimberley high court.
Kelder said residents can legally withhold rates if municipalities haven’t published their property rates in the Government Gazette.
“If needs be we will go [back] to the Constitutional Court. Our towns and cities are falling apart,” he said.
Tension between Kamiesberg municipality and Koingnaas residents — who have rallied under the banner of the Koingnaas Taxpayers Association — culminated in a confrontation last month between a resident roadworks team and the police, according to court documents.
“The municipal manager contacted the SA Police Service whose members reportedly later confronted the [ratepayers organisation], which led to an altercation between the two sides,” Judge Mpho Mamosebo said in her judgment.
“The issue was around lack of skills or alleged incompetence and shoddy work by employees of the [municipality].”
Residents subsequently wrote to the municipal manager and threatened “to take control of the infrastructure of Koingnaas at the end of December 2021”, Mamosebo said.
The municipality had acknowledged delays in fixing the sewerage plant but denied problems with water quality, she said. “They do, however, confirm that there are sometimes challenges with the water pressure.”
One resident said there were fears that Gräbe intended subverting democracy and pushing for some form of “volkstaat”.
But Gräbe insisted black and white property owners were simply frustrated by the municipality’s failings. “Everything is just about service delivery, which is not up to standard. We are saying, ‘If you don’t do the services then we will do it.’ That’s the end of the story.”
So far, the community has raised about R100,000 for repairs — most of it rates money but also donations. “All races, all colours [contributed] — it was a wonderful thing,” said Gräbe.
Veronica Van Dyk, DA Kamiesberg constituency head, said the municipal implosion also affected the nearby coastal town of Hondeklipbaai where businesses were without water for the holiday season.
The police station had to use its fire hose to flush toilets and make coffee, Van Dyk said.
“Service delivery is a dire problem in the Kamiesberg municipal area. In the past I have involved companies like Coca-Cola to deliver water,” said Van Dyk.
“Long-term solutions should come from the municipality to address outdated and poor infrastructure. Communication from the municipality’s side is sorely lacking. This leads to frustrated residents, not only dissatisfied with communication, but also concerning the way their tax money is spent if not on basic service delivery.”
Kamiesberg municipal manager Rufus Beukes said the interdict was issued after a written warning to residents to stop their repairs.
“The municipality’s attorneys did write letters to the Koingnaas Taxpayers Association urging them to refrain from continuing with their actions or the municipality would have no choice but to seek a court order to stop their actions,” said Beukes.
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