Three estates of Waterfall City, a prime residential area where some of the who’s who of politics, business, and A-list celebrities reside, has been exposed as a hub for illegal water connections that have cost the City of Johannesburg millions of rands.
The minted Mia family owns the city in which the R5.7-billion rand Mall of Africa in Midrand is located.
Three estates of the posh city, where homes fetch between R1.8-million and R30-million, are accused by the municipality of connecting to the bulk water system without the approval of Johannesburg Water.
The city says the properties implicated are owned by 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, the applicants ask 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 approval.
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 connected illegally.
It added that Waterfall Schools, which owns the property known as Curro Schools, was in the process of building a school for which Joburg Water has not authorised a water meter.
“There was an illegal water meter connection to the property with the school premises connected thereto. This meter connection was illegal as there was no application requesting a water supply connection to Johannesburg Water, and furthermore, there was no legitimate water meter that was installed by Johannesburg Water…
“A meter found at the property was illegally connected to the Johannesburg Water reticulation system,” said the municipality.
The municipality added that Waterfall Fields, which owns properties known as The Polofields and Kikuyu, erected units without an authorised water meter.
As a result of these illegal water connections, the city slapped Waterfall Country Estate, Waterfall Schools and Waterfall Fields with heavy fines.
In their court papers filed in June 2023, the Waterfall Country Estate, Waterfall Schools and Waterfall Fields asked the court to declare the fines imposed by the city unlawful.
According to the Waterfall Country Estate’s application, in October 2018, the municipality demanded it pay over R1-million for water consumption.
The Waterfall Country Estate said this notice does not comply with the city’s by-laws thus unlawful.
In May 2018, the city also fined Waterfall Schools and Waterfall Fields more than R2-
million and R7-million, respectively.
The applicants said these fines do not comply with Section 111 of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality water services by-laws, and are thus also unlawful.
The applicants said they do not dispute the illegal water connections, only the charges.
They said they hired a certain person to connect them to water.
“This person acted in concert with a complicit ex-official of the City of Joburg. It is admitted that it was discovered months, if not years afterwards that the connections made by the private person were unlawful…The once illegal meter was regularised and complied with the respondents’ requirement,” said the applicants.
The applicants further state that “to the extent that the amounts charged in the notices are for service delivery by the first respondent, and have not been prescribed, such amounts have been calculated incorrectly by the first respondent and must be
calculated with reference to the applicable annual tariff published by the first respondent”.
They added that the water consumption amount of over R4. 3-million reflected in the June 2018 municipal account of Curro School Waterfall is unlawful because “such charges have been calculated and determined by the municipality with reference
to the incorrect tariff”.
They ask the court to order the city to correct the accounts within 30 days.
Moreover, they asked the court to bar the city and Joburg Water from
taking any debt-recovery or remedial action in respect of the disputed amounts.
The matter is set down for oral arguments in the Johannesburg High Court on April 30.
In February 2023, Waterfall Management Company was awarded Best International Mixed-use Development 2022-2023 for Waterfall City at the annual World’s Best International Property Awards.
It was the fifth time in six years that Waterfall City had won, beating nominees in Cyprus, Brazil, Qatar and Hong Kong.
“Entries were judged based on criteria ranging from design layout and quality, architecture, services and security, to innovation, originality, marketing and commitment to sustainability.”
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