State strung out case — Moutse residents

 AN AFFIDAVIT filed by Moutse residents in the Constitutional Court sets out how the state has delayed the finalisation of its demarcation case since 2008. The residents in the once cross- boundary municipality between Mpumalanga and Limpopo will once again — as in the 2009 elections — face the choice of voting or not voting in a municipality of which they do not consider themselves a part . The affidavit shows that promises by Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka to take the demarcation to the Cabinet for  consideration last year have not been kept. The residents say it is now unlikely that the issue of their incorporation — which will be heard by the Constitutional Court next month — will be resolved before local government elections in May.

The residents of Moutse first brought a case before the Constitutional Court in 2008 to challenge being demarcated in Limpopo. The matter was postponed a number of times and removed from the court’s roll on November 3 2009, in order to allow the Cabinet to consider the results of a consultation process conducted in September and October that year.

"To the best of my knowledge, and despite the m inister’s repeated recordals that the applicants’ case would be addressed during the course of 2010, the Moutse issue has not yet been tabled before Cabinet for consideration," said Lawyers for Human Rights’ David Cote , the attorney for the Moutse Demarcation Forum and the residents, in an affidavit filed with the court last week. The forum and the residents said they had indicated their opposition to being incorporated into Limpopo as early as 2004.

They argue that the s peaker of the Mpumalanga l egislature has failed to facilitate public involvement as required by the constitution. Their advocates, Gilbert Marcus SC, Steven Budlender and Isabel Goodman, said the provincial boundary adopted by the Constitution Twelfth Amendment served to perpetuate the apartheid-era border, cut through a continuous human settlement, and was irrational.

However, advocates for Mr Shiceka, the speakers of the Limpopo and Mpumalanga legislatures, the Limpopo p remier and local government MEC said the primary basis on which the forum and residents attacked the amendment was that the redemarcation had not resulted in better service delivery.

"There is no evidence that placing the Moutse areas in Mpumalanga would automatically result in better service delivery," advocates Vincent Maleka SC and Seena Yacoob wrote in their submissions. "In fact, on (their) own version, there are service delivery problems in Mpumalanga as well."