A Johannesburg businessman says that after trying every avenue to get the city to fix a potentially erroneous water bill – emails, court orders, and a warrant for the arrest of the city manager – he is still unable to get a bill corrected.

News24 reports that Crispin Birch received a water bill for his electrical-importing company, Pibir Investments. The bill had increased significantly from R17 565 in December 2021 to R138 775 in January 2022.

Birch exchanged several emails with the city, which kept giving him reference numbers, but did not address the billing issue.

He headed to court, and on 15 August 2023, Acting Judge Yasmin Carrim ordered that the city and Johannesburg Water not disconnect the property, pending the outcome of an application by Pibir to have the water bill corrected.

Two days later, Johannesburg Water and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department disconnected the water supply. Birch headed back to the court to have the city held in contempt.

On 31 January 2024, Judge Leonard Twala found city manager Floyd Brink in contempt of court and ordered that Brink be imprisoned for 30 days, suspended for a year on condition that the city and Johannesburg Water didn’t violate the order again.

As the city manager, Brink is the accounting head who represents the city. In April 2024, after alleged further non-compliance, Pibir moved to have the arrest warrant executed, but Brink evaded arrest because his name had been misspelt on the warrant.

The matter finally culminated in a judgment on Friday in which Acting High Court Judge Michelle van Nieuwenhuizen set aside the warrant of arrest as irregular, unlawful, and unenforceable, and ordered Pibir Investments to pay the city and Brink’s costs.

Brink said the judgment reaffirmed the importance of the rule of law and the proper use of judicial processes.

He said ‘the judgment serves as a reminder that legal disputes do not absolve residents or businesses from their obligations to the municipality, including the payment of rates, taxes and municipal accounts’. 

But Birch still has no answers to his questions about the water bill.

Speaking to News24 on Sunday, Birch said the business is not opposed to paying the bill, but wanted the city to reveal how it had arrived at that amount, ‘and if we owe them, then we pay’.

Full News24 report