Durban — Tenants of Garland House in Overport have won a case against their landlord for water and electricity restrictions.
The decision was made by the Durban Magistrate’s Court last week. In this case, 10 tenants of Garland House, on Moses Kotane Road, went to court after their landlord had restricted their water and electricity supply. The court ruled that the usual forms and services provided for in the rules be dispensed with and applicants were granted leave to have the matter heard urgently.
Under the court order, “the respondents are hereby directed to forthwith restore the pre-paid electricity and pre-paid water supply and/or remove all restrictions to the pre-paid electricity and pre-paid water supply to several units in the building”.
“The respondents are hereby interdicted and restrained from interrupting and/or restricting and/or terminating the supply of the pre-paid electricity and water units mentioned above.”
The court ordered that failure by the respondents to comply with the relief sought meant “the Sheriff and/ or his deputy is hereby authorised to do all things necessary to forthwith restore and/or remove all restrictions to the electricity and water supply to unit 25”.
The respondents may anticipate this order upon 24-hour notice.
KwaZulu-Natal Tenants and Homeless People’s Trust chairperson Dawood Parag, 73, claimed that the tenants were being exploited for their pre-paid water and electricity supply. He said this problem had been ongoing for more than a decade, and on numerous occasions, they had tried alerting local and national governments but had not received positive replies.
“The sad reality is that millions of tenants, particularly the poor and indigent masses, are suffering because of a policy directive by a government watchdog body – the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa). Nersa was supposed to have protected every consumer, and have instead violated their constitutional mandate by allowing landlords and agents permission to resell vouchers to tenants,” said Parag.
He said fellow tenants were left with no choice but to take the matter to court as that was the last bastion of their struggle.
He said that on September 2, 2022, the tenants began their legal campaign. One of the tenants, who stayed in Garland House for more than 40 years, had her water supply cut off for almost a month due to being in arrears, while another was only given R30 worth of water after purchasing a R250 voucher. The balance was deducted to compensate for being in arrears.
EThekwini Municipality said the government had a Free Basic Electricity policy to give relief to indigent customers who consumed less than 150kwh of electricity a month, and since the early 2000s, the municipality has been giving indigent customers 65Kwh of free electricity.
WhatsApp your views on this story to 071 485 7995
Daily News