Cape Town was on the brink of a garbage disaster just before Christmas in 2016 – but it was kept secret and resolved unlawfully. A Times Select report says the ‘situation of potential emergency’ has come to light in a judgment which lambasts the city council for an 11th-hour land grab intended to stave off catastrophe.

The drama could have meant the closure of the railway line that delivers almost 2 000 tons of rubbish a day to a landfill north of the city, potentially leaving the city under a mound of rubbish. Instead, with nine days to disaster, deputy mayor Ian Neilson decided to expropriate the 2.6ha Vissershok railway siding from its owner, Kohler Bricks.

Nielson’s decision, taken when he was acting mayor in the absence of then Mayor Patricia de Lille, has now been overturned by a Western Cape High Court judgment.

Kohler’s attorney, Mike Evans of Webber Wentzel, said Judge Ashley Binns-Ward’s ruling that the council failed to follow procedures prescribed in the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act should comfort those anxious about proposals for a constitutional amendment on land expropriation.

‘What this shows is that authorities will still have to behave with procedural fairness in cases of expropriation,’ he said.

Binns-Ward said Kohler had leased the siding to Transnet since 1995, and the city council had made a significant investment in infrastructure to unload containers from the Athlone waste-transfer station. Transnet repeatedly failed to renew its leases in time, said the judge, and Kohler twice started legal action and threatened to pull up the railway line that crossed its land.

The judge set aside the city council land grab and awarded costs against it, but said it could continue using the siding while it considered its next move.

Full Times Select report

Kohler Bricks (Pty) Ltd v City of Cape Town and Another