Centane – Eastern Cape – A rural community in the Eastern Cape is locked in a renewed legal battle with the government, accusing authorities of flagrantly disregarding a court order to provide them with clean drinking water. The residents of Nombanjana Village have filed a contempt of court application against the Amathole District Municipality, along with the provincial and national government, for failing to adhere to a 2022 High Court ruling.
The legal action is the latest chapter in a long-running struggle for access to a basic human right. The community’s fight for water first gained national attention in 2020, when residents were arrested for gathering in their community hall to discuss the crisis.
“The police came and threw us in the police van at gunpoint,” one resident recalled, describing the arrests for contravening COVID-19 regulations. “We were taken to the police station in Tandan before we were charged R10,000 each for violating COVID-19 rules. But because we are poor, we were called the development trust. They helped us and we were released.”
The arrests did not deter the community. With the assistance of an NGO and the Centre for Environmental Rights, they took the matter to the Mthatha High Court, which in 2022 ruled in their favour. The court ordered the Amathole District Municipality to provide immediate relief by delivering water tankers to the village every week while a long-term solution was sought.
However, residents say the municipality’s compliance was short-lived. “After the court ruled that the government must provide us with water, they failed to do that,” another villager explained. “The ruling was that they must bring water tankers every week. They only did that once and they stopped after that.”
Today, the situation in Nombanjana Village remains dire. More than a decade after taps were installed in the area, the pipes remain dry. Residents are forced to rely on a nearby river for all their needs, sharing the water source with livestock.
“We struggle a lot to get water because we have no taps,” said a mother from the village. “Our taps stopped working in 2018 and that’s the last time we fetched water from the taps. If you don’t have a tank in your house, you are forced to go to the river.”
The health implications are severe. The stagnant river water, which one resident described as having algae and being salty due to the lack of rain, is making the community sick. “The rivers we fetch the water from have algae,” a resident stated. “Our children get sores when they bathe with the water. They even get diarrhea.”
Feeling abandoned and with their constitutional rights trampled, the community, again backed by their legal partners, returned to the Mthatha High Court in November 2023. This time, they have cited the Amathole District Municipality, the Eastern Cape provincial government, and the national government for their failure to implement the initial court order.
“We engaged with our lawyers. We also invited the centre for environmental rights in order for them to be of assistance,” a community representative said. “We also highlighted the fact that the failure is not only the provincial government nor the local municipality but it’s a national government duty to make sure that people do get water because it is there in the constitution. For people not to have water, it means that the government have failed the community.”
The legal action coincides with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent State of the Nation Address, in which he noted that 56 municipalities across the country are facing litigation for failing to provide water to communities.
Responding to the ongoing crisis, an Amathole District Municipality spokesperson acknowledged the infrastructure challenges. “The current challenge relates to a reduced borehole yield. Of the three boreholes that were originally drilled for the scheme, only one is currently producing water and at a reduced output,” the spokesperson said. “As a result, full supply cannot be sustained across all the areas that are connected at the same time. To manage this, there’s a rotational supply that is being implemented that is supported by water tankers when and where necessary. We do recognize the impact this has on the affected households and we remain committed to improving supply reliability within the existing technical and legal frameworks.”
For the residents of Nombanjana Village, these promises ring hollow. They continue to collect algae-tinged water from a river they share with animals, awaiting a High Court ruling that will determine if the government will finally be held to account for its constitutional obligations.