Instead of uniting in their legal challenge against eThekwini Municipality’s failure to repair the city’s health hazard sewage infrastructure, the DA and ActionSA, who are joined court applicants, were at each other’s throats.
The two parties took the city to the Durban High Court over the sewage problem.
The matter was heard at the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday and Friday and was adjourned after the full bench reserved the judgment.
In its 2022 affidavit, ActionSA alleged that the municipality had failed to maintain and repair its sewage infrastructure, which would have prevented untreated effluent from spilling into rivers, the ocean, and beaches.
DA councillor Thabani Mthethwa said his party used the court action to expose the municipality’s failure to deal with sewerage challenges.
“It was only after court papers were filed that the municipality began to make superficial attempts to address the crisis, clearly demonstrating that without pressure from the DA, no meaningful steps would have been taken,” said Mthethwa.
The municipality is yet to respond to questions sent to its spokesperson, Gugu Sisilana on Friday.
However, in an unprecedented turn of events among conjoined applicants, DA’s KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Dean Macpherson issued a damning press statement on Friday, alleging that the ActionSA’s legal team came to court “unprepared”.
He alleged that the ActionSA’s lawyers could not answer “basic” questions from the court.
Talking to this reporter, ActionSA provincial leader Zwakele Mncwango hit back at Macpherson, saying he was a lonely man seeking attention.
Macpherson alleged that ActionSA’s lawyers performed so badly that some of its embarrassed leaders hastily left the court.
He said the DA effectively saved the legal action by spending the majority of Thursday and Friday presenting a strong argument that the ANC-led municipality was not complying with “legally binding” national and provincial directives and lacked a credible action plan to fix the sewage crisis and rampant vandalism on the wastewater infrastructure.
“We also exposed that the municipality had not adhered to its water licenses.
“Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for ActionSA [as] their legal team was completely unprepared and was unable to answer basic questions from the court.
“Things got so bad for ActionSA that they were only able to argue their case for a mere 30 minutes before resigning in defeat,” said Macpherson.
In reaction, Mncwango said he did not attribute the statement to the whole DA leadership, but only to Macpherson, whom he said was obsessed with ActionSA.
“Maybe he needs to get a boyfriend, I think he is just frustrated,” said Mncwango.
He alleged that Macpherson was annoyed that the DA was forced by the court to join Action SA’s application, which was filed on November 16, 2022, whereas the DA wanted to lodge a separate litigation, which it filed against the city in 2023.
“Because we did not want this thing to be about ActionSA, we invited all stakeholders, including political parties, to join us on this litigation so that we can be together in court.
“They decided not to respond, then four months later, they decided to go to court on their own,” said Mncwango.
Mncwango said he was happy when the DA lodged its application, which was later joined with that of ActionSA.
“The only problem we had was that the DA, by joining our matter, delayed the matter because it was supposed to be heard some time ago, but the DA was not ready as it had to read affidavits.
“You have not heard us attacking the DA because I am happy that we are fighting together for the same residents; therefore, why must we provoke each other?” said Mncwango.
He said he did not understand why the city was opposing the matter, instead of fixing the sewerage using part of its R1.5 billion, which was allocated to it to repair infrastructure that was damaged by floods.
“The municipality has an overall budget of R71 billion, which is why we asked how you prioritise your budget if sewage is your priority and you understand its impact on the environment,” he said.
He said he was confident that the ActionSA legal team put up strong arguments.
The DA supporters had on Thursday and Friday picketed outside the court in support of the court action. DA had applied for permission to picket.
Mncwango said a group of ActionSA supporters were present outside the court, but not picketing because the party did not apply for permission.
He said that while inside the court, he was alerted to the chaos caused by police attempting to disperse ActionSA members.
He said when he questioned police about their action, they told him that the DA asked them to disperse the ActionSA members because they were picketing without permission.
“I went inside to call Francois Rodgers (DA provincial leader), who went outside and together with me spoke to the police, and the matter was easily resolved, but Dean was angry that the matter was resolved because he wanted a fight with the ActionSA.
“Therefore, I don’t think that the statement was authored by the DA, but it was written by Dean with his anger issues, which is why I am saying that maybe he is looking for a boyfriend in the ActionSA” said Mncwango.
During an interview with this reporter, Macpherson said Mncwago was sick and denied calling police to disperse “hobbos”, which he said ActionSA recruited to come to the court to pose as its members and were picketing.
“The ActionSA must answer why did they came to picket when they did not have permission to do so? Why did they break the law?” he said.
When asked if he was happy to be joined with the ActionSA in the legal fight against the municipality, Macpherson said: “It was in the ActionSA’s benefit because we saved them from humiliation in court and they should be grateful that they were joined with us.”
