Komani residents ask ConCourt to dissolve municipal council

Residents of the Eastern Cape town are asking the Constitutional Court to intervene in the Enoch Mgijima council's administration over persistent service delivery breakdowns and financial woes.

- By Estelle Ellis

In the wake of several government interventions at the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, Komani residents have now approached the Constitutional Court to rule on whether their municipal council should be dissolved.

Their case is based on the municipality's failure to deliver services to residents, including electricity and waste collection. It is also accused of failing to deal with ghost employees, collect rates and implement a financial recovery plan, and it has an unpaid Eskom bill that is running into billions, according to papers before court.

If the court grants the application and hears the case, it is bound to make legal history. This is because, although several applications have come before the country's high courts for orders in this regard, neither of the two highest courts — the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court — has had a chance to pronounce on the legal interpretation of the Constitution in this regard.

The first case in which residents were successful in obtaining an order that their municipal council should be dissolved because of an unconstitutional lack of service delivery was brought by the residents of Makhanda. The Eastern Cape government appealed against the decision, but the matter was settled at the Supreme Court of Appeal before the case could be heard.

Ken Clark, an independent municipal councillor and the owner of Crickley Dairy and Twizza, together with local civic groups Let's Talk Komani and the Independents, have led the call for the Enoch Mgijima municipal council to be disbanded.

Although they lost their case in the High Court in Makhanda, Clark said he believed "with respect" - that Judge Thandi Norman's interpretation of the law had been "plainly wrong".