Waterfall estates in illegal water connection scandal

Three estates of Waterfall City, a prime residential area where some of the who's who in politics, business and A-list celebrities reside, have been exposed as a hub of illegal water connections that has cost the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality millions of rands in unpaid services.

- By Mpho Koka

The minted Mia family owns the city in which the R5.7-billion rand Mall of Africa in Midrand is located.

The three estates of the posh city, whose residential properties cost between R1.8 -million and R30-million, are accused by the municipality of erecting properties and connecting water to them without authorised metering devices from its subsidiary, Johannesburg Water.

The municipality says the estates implicated are Waterfall Country Estate, Waterfall Schools and Waterfall Fields. Instead of disconnecting these properties and laying criminal charges against the culprits, the municipality has instead imposed fines, but the owners of the properties took the municipality to Joburg High Court in June 2023 to challenge the quantums.

In the court papers, which cited the municipality as the first respondent and Joburg Water as second respondent, the applicants are demanding the court to declare the fines imposed on them for illegal water connections unlawful.

The municipality said in its answering affidavit in November 2023 that Waterfall Country Estate, Waterfall Schools and Waterfall Fields employed private persons to install and connect water meters to the infrastructure of Joburg Water without its consent and without an application to Joburg Water.

The municipality said this was uncovered during a Joburg Water investigation in July 2018.

The municipality said Waterfall Country Estate, which owns the property known as The Sheds, had 72 units without an authorised Johannesburg Water metering device.