Water charge battle sent back to High Court
A majority ruling of the Constitutional Court yesterday said the Merafong Local Municipality in Gauteng should have approached the courts to challenge a decision by then Minister of Water Affairs Buyelwa Sonjica forbidding it to levy a surcharge on water supplied to mines under its jurisdiction. Merafong municipality had approached the Constitutional Court to be allowed to levy a surcharge on water used by mines under its jurisdiction, says a TimesLIVE report.
AngloGold Ashanti‚ which operates mines in Merafong‚ appealed to Sonjica in 2005 and she ruled the municipality should not levy a surcharge on water supplied to the company for industrial use. AngloGold claims it had been unlawfully overcharged nearly R31m for water and forced to pay up under an enterprise-throttling threat of cut-off. Instead of challenging Sonjica's ruling‚ the municipality ignored it. AngloGold Ashanti successfully took the the matter to the High court, and then the SCA, hearing the municipality’s appeal, ruled last year that even if the Minister's decision was unlawful‚ the municipality could not simply treat it as though it did not exist.
The Constitutional Court upheld the municipality's leave to appeal the SCA's decision and set aside the orders of the High Court and the SCA, notes the TimesLIVE report. ‘In their stead‚ the matter is remitted to the High Court to determine‚ after the lodging of further affidavits as the applicant‚ Merafong City Local Municipality‚ and the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry may consider appropriate‚ on the lawfulness of the Minister's decision of 18 July 2005‚ and‚ if necessary‚ what remedy is to be granted‚’ the court ruled. The majority judgment noted that‚ ‘as a good constitutional citizen... Merafong should have either accepted the Minister's ruling as valid or gone to court to challenge it’. The court found that Merafong had both the responsibility and resources to obtain judicial clarity rather than resort to self-help by threatening AngloGold with a water cut-off.
Merafong City Local Municipality v AngloGold Ashanti Limited
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