With just over a month to municipal elections, people and parties are debating service delivery and the responsiveness — or otherwise — of municipalities and their officials. It turns out that the courts are similarly focused on the issue, as a new judgment on the delivery problems of neighbouring seaside towns highlights. The villages — Kenton, Bushman’s River and Nature’s Landing — are in an environmentally sensitive part of the Eastern Cape.The three issues at the heart of the matter heard by the high court in Grahamstown, in the dispute between the towns’ ratepayers and the Ndlambe local municipality, illustrate the frustration of many communities over unacceptable delivery regarding sewage, waste disposal and communication.Failure to sort out the local sewerage works led to raw sewage flowing into the Bushman’s River estuary and thus into the sea. In addition nothing was done to establish a new waste dump site though the authorities had a number of years’ notice to act. And, pe...
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