Soweto land owners want Joburg officials sent to prison in row over basic services

A group of Soweto property owners want City of Johannesburg officials to be sent to jail for not complying with two court orders.

The nine owners, who bought land under the City’s land regularisation process, have not been able to occupy the land and have been charged rates and taxes despite their stands not being connected to basic services. The City’s regularisation process was aimed at selling thousands of council-owned properties to residents, giving them access to land and home ownership.

But, these owners say, they have been let down. And in spite of getting two court orders compelling the City and its agent, the Joburg Property Company, to install the basic bulk infrastructure in the area so they can build on their stands, more than five years later this has not been done.

The property owners, who are represented by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, bought their properties in the Zondi area of Soweto between 2009 and 2014.

They first went to court in October 2017 after discovering that there was no bulk infrastructure for basic services and they could not build their homes, yet they were being charged rates and taxes.

Read more: New land reform minister, the PAC’s Mzwanele Nyhontso, vows to ‘use all available means’ to amend Constitution

They asked for an order for the City’s conduct to be declared unconstitutional and to direct it to install the necessary infrastructure, and to write off the rates charges.

A settlement agreement was made by an order of court. In it, the City agreed to install the infrastructure and said a special council meeting would be convened in terms of the Municipal Structures Act to process the approval of the installations.

The owners say that order was not complied with. In December 2021 they returned to court, securing another order stating that the City was now in contempt, but this had little to no effect.

Now the residents have launched further contempt proceedings in the High Court in Johannesburg. They also want the court to declare that the City’s conduct in their case is not only inconsistent with the Constitution, but also unlawful.

In an affidavit on behalf of the owners, Pamela Duduzile Nkosi said: “The core of this application is about accountability. The issues raised in this application are about holding government institutions and officials accountable for not only contemptuous conduct towards this court, but also for the dereliction of their constitutional obligations even after they have been clarified by this court.”

Nkosi said five years had passed since the first order was granted, by agreement, and yet they were not given any good reason that they were still without bulk infrastructure.

Nkosi attached a long list of correspondence between the Centre for Applied Legal Studies and attorneys acting for the City. The correspondence reflects that at some stage a “working committee” was established to monitor the situation, that there had been some instability in the community and a need to engage with the ward councillor regarding the installations.

On the issue of the bills, Nkosi said, finally in May 2024 it appeared as if the debts had been written off. But they were still facing “discomfort” at the fact that the billing would again proceed and they would still have no electricity and water.

In a statement this month, the City said the application was premature “given the collaborative efforts made by both parties to implement the court order”.

“To date, the City has made significant progress on implementing the court order. The write-off report has been approved and the City’s debt collectors have been notified.

“Furthermore, the area is supplied with electricity by Eskom and the Centre for Applied Legal Studies was notified to advise its clients to individually apply to Eskom for electricity,” it said.

The City added that a bulk service provider had been appointed but was chased away by the community, and the contract was subsequently cancelled. A meeting had been scheduled for this week with the ward councillor and the community to find a solution to this. DM

First published by GroundUp.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.