GNorth/Moshawa trust win standpipe battle

Mpho Mokwape | Thursday March 10, 2016 16:31

Last week, Justice Michael Leburu of Lobatse High Court ruled in favour of the Gaborone North/Moshawa Community Trust, and interdicted the respondents from interfering with the work of the trust and the operation of the bank account.

The applicants had through their lawyer, Uyapo Ndadi, argued that before the court case, they had recently registered a trust with the aim of running the standpipe.

 According to the court papers, the trust, formerly called Community Development Committee (CDC) came into being mainly because sometime in July 2014, the community standpipe in Gaborone North/Moshawa area was closed down for several days. The community in this area relies heavily on the supply of water from the standpipe, as the Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) has not connected it for reticulation.

Among the respondents are Linet Habana, Simphiwe Mathendele, Khotso Lebatha and Barclays Bank as the holder of the trust’s account.

Leburu ordered the respondents not to act as bank signatories of the account at Barclays Bank under the name of the trust and the bank to migrate the trust account to a new one and effect the decision to stop the respondents from transacting in the account.

“The respondents are hereby also interdicted from instructing or causing persons who purchase water from the standpipe run by the applicants to pay through their account and are hereby interdicted and restrained from undermining the work of the applicant’s trustees and should return all the documentation to the trust,” he said. The documents read: “Owing to the suffering and inconvenience that ensued as a result of the repeated closure of the standpipe, concerned and active inhabitants of the area approached WUC to find out why the standpipe water supply was terminated, not only once. The WUC informed the inhabitants that a certain gentleman by the name of Mr Lombard who was the owner of Blitz Concrete had not paid the WUC water bill for the standpipe as he was the one running it.” 

Moreover the community was asked by WUC, as it was apparent that it was disjointed, to formalise and be one body.  “Eventually the community won the bid to run the standpipe as a result of what appears to have been massive lobbying by some community members such as Dithapelo Lubinda, who wrote numerous letters to WUC,” reads the court paper. The respondents had argued that the standpipe was given to Moshawa community and any person from Gaborone North has no right over the use and benefit of the water and its proceeds.  Also that the objectives of the trust, which are all-inclusive, were improperly arrived at as some people who voted were from Gaborone North and consequently the meeting was flawed. Gaborone North and Moshawa residents are divided over the running of a standpipe that generates money for the community and supplies the two areas with water. The division came as some committee members within a trust that was formed to operate the standpipe and its bank account defected leading to a legal battle. They had wanted to defect with the money and the power to operate the standpipe.