Court rules that municipalities can’t just ignore ratepayers complaining about water bills

A pensioner from East London who decided to fight back after receiving a R30,000 water bill has won a major legal victory over the Buffalo City metro in the city’s High Court, after the judge ruled that officials cannot just ignore rate payers’ billing disputes.

“The Municipality has abysmally failed to meet its constitutional and legal mandate to the applicant in this instance,” Judge Belinda Hartle said in her judgment in the East London High Court.

Octavia Ngceke had received a R30,000 water bill and while trying to sort the problem out the municipality added penalties, interest and a reconnection fee for electricity that should not have been disconnected in the first place.

Despite lodging a formal dispute with the municipality, Ngceke received no answer. The municipality neither acknowledged that they had received her paperwork nor did they deal with it.

Ngceke owns property in West Bank, East London. In June 2021 she received what was described by Hartle as “ a shocking monthly statement” showing that she owed the municipality R29,101.70 for water.

The water bill received from Buffalo City municipality. (Photo: Supplied)

Advocate Brendan Tarr, who represented Ngceke, said the amount of water the municipality claimed to be used by the pensioner was the volume of about two swimming pools.

“She doubted that the amount could be correct or consistent with her consumption of water during the relevant period and decided that the municipality must have made a mistake in its calculations. She was, for example, concerned that two different water meter numbers were reflected on the statement of account over the relevant period, the one reflecting a reading of 109 kiloliters and the other 159 kiloliters. In the three months preceding the June statement, an interim meter reading of 15 kiloliters per month had been invoiced.

“The second water meter appeared like an apparition,” Tarr said.

A reconnection fee of R461.00 had also been charged to her account on 25 December 2021, consequent to a disconnection which she also objected to on the basis that it should never have been affected in the first place. Penalties and arrear interest were also invoiced to the account.

Ngceke appointed a plumber who found that there was a leak between the municipal water meter and Ngceke’s fence where the pipe had cracked. He fixed the problem and addressed a letter to the municipal manager to explain the situation.

This letter, Hartle remarked, “should have been sufficient to have registered with the Municipality, that its own infrastructure had been found wanting in relation to the leak established by [the plumber] and that this could have been the reason for the excessive water charges passed on to her”.

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Court action

By May 2023 the matter was still not resolved and Ngceke’s attorneys got involved. They filed a formal dispute with the municipality.

The paperwork for this was delivered by hand to the municipality on 8 May 2023.

Ngceke still received no answer from the municipality.

Her lawyers then decided to go to court.

The municipality did not deny that it had been tardy in dealing with Ngceke’s complaint. But instead, they blamed her for the delay saying that she did not follow the right steps in their credit control policy. They further argued that Ngceke’s legal action was premature as there were still other internal steps that could be taken.

Advocate Brendan Tarr, instructed by Nieuwoudt-Du Plessis Attorneys argued that the municipal credit control policy compelled the metro to take a decision on the matter within 60 days, and that the municipality had failed to do so.

In her judgment, Hartle remarked: “Interestingly, [the municipality] offers no solution to the formal complaint but its counsel has sought to justify its opposition of the application on the basis “that the Municipality is well within its rights to resist applications lodged pre-maturely and without exhausting internal remedies available thereby preventing opportunistic litigation and sav(ing) municipal resources which remain scarce.”

Passing the buck

She added that in her mind, Ngceke had substantially complied with what was required to lodge a dispute about the water bill. “[I]t concerns me that the Municipality resorts to point taking in this respect as if this somehow absolves it from the primary problem that it is required to address. If it does not accept the fact that there was a leak, it must say so and invite [Ngceke] to substantiate the information provided in this regard if it considers it to be lacking in any way,” Hartle added.

She said the municipality must, however, first respond to Ngceke’s dispute.

The dispute filed by Ngceke, Hartle points out, contained “more than enough” information for the municipality to address the problem.

Hartle continued that the municipality’s reliance on their credit control policy also “frankly does not provide for a situation where the tardiness or neglect comes from the Municipality. This in effect means that a consumer invoking the dispute procedure is up a creek without a paddle, as it were, if the Chief Financial Officer does not respond to the enquiry within the more than ample sixty days…”

She said as no decision was taken there is no internal appeal that can be done.

“[Ngceke] has clearly been traumatised by the excessive billing that has been in play for almost three years now. If a consumer cannot under the constraints of the [municipal credit control policy] approach a municipal official at a counter and have his/her queries summarily dealt with or concerns allayed, they must at least be entitled to legitimately expect fair administrative procedures by accountable local government in accordance with the applicable policy in force at the time,” Hartle added.

She ruled that the municipality’s failure to comply with Ngceke’s enquiries and appeal procedures as set out in their own credit control policy was unlawful and gave them 10 days to respond to her in writing.

She also ordered the municipality to pay the costs of the application.

Ngceke said she was delighted at the outcome of the hearing.

“I’m hoping that the Municipality will do the right thing and resolve this dispute as per the judgment once and for all,” she said.

“I feel that it was necessary for me to approach the court for assistance with my water billing dispute because my complaints to the Municipality had clearly landed on deaf ears. The dispute has been ongoing for almost three years during which I have been paying monthly penalties plus interest on arrears in my account, meaning that the account was growing out of control.  I’m relieved and happy,” she said. She thanked her attorney Mthunzi Ngceke and the law firm Nieuwoudt-Du Plessis Attorneys.

“They were with me through this entire journey and I feel like one of the lucky few that had the courage to take on the municipality and get a judgment in my favour,” she added.

Tarr said he hoped this ruling could assist others who are in the same boat as Ngceke.

The Buffalo City municipality has not yet responded to a request for comment. DM