Water Crises: Community in talks to take legal action against eThekwini Municipality
A group of activists say they are in
talks with a local law firm and are in the process of drawing up a joint action
civil lawsuit against the eThekwini Municipality, over the recent water outage
in the south and western parts of Durban.
The failure of several pumps at the Northdene 3 Pump Station left residents in Chatsworth, Shallcross, Harinagar and other areas without supply for about a week earlier this month.
Technicians eventually managed to get one pump working last week.
The activists say they've approached the firm who has agreed to help them sue the City on behalf of affected residents.
Community leader, Nilesh Maharaj says the cuts were a violation of the basic human rights of citizens.
“Issues are directed to the municipality and there is often no response or resolution,” Maharaj said.
“The municipality’s utility bills does not provide what they are charging for, we are facing similar charges, this needs to be questioned and addressed.”
He says they have set up a contact base for affected residents and businesses to contact them so they may be included in the lawsuit.
“As with any legal matter, it is a lengthy process, but the attorney is doing all that he can to make it speedy. Courts are also on a backlog due to Covid. The attorney is waiting evidence from the community in order to move forward but there are a lot of activities taking place while we wait for this to come through. We are trying our best to make sure recurrences such as these come to an end.”
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