Phokwane Municipality disregards court order; AfriForum takes action

The civil rights organisation AfriForum on 8 February 2017 gave instruction to its legal team for the issue and carrying out of a warrant for execution.

This follows after AfriForum obtained an order as to costs against the Phokwane Local Municipality in a lawsuit that mandates the Municipality to correct unlawful electricity tariffs. Although these tariffs can only be determined by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), it seems that municipal officials associated with the Municipality took no notice of this.

“AfriForum won the case against the Municipality with cost. The letter of demand to pay the legal costs has already been served on the municipal manager by the sheriff. To date there has however not been any correspondence from the municipal manager,” says Theo Joubert, the Chairperson of AfriForum’s Vaalharts branch.

“To disregard a court order is a criminal offence. We can no longer allow municipal officials to get away with actions like these,” says Linja van Wyk, AfriForum’s District Coordinator for the Northern Cape.

“On 20 December 2016, the registrar of the High Court in Kimberley ordered that legal fees of about R265 000 be paid back to AfriForum. Despite the written letter of demand, the Municipality has to date not paid back anything,” says Hein Gonzales, AfriForum’s Law and Risk Coordinator for Community Affairs.

“With this letter of demand for execution we will let the sheriff remove the Municipality’s movable property and sell it at a judicial auction to get back our legal cost.”