{"id":163813,"date":"2017-03-13T09:28:53","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T07:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=163813"},"modified":"2020-02-21T18:00:09","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T16:00:09","slug":"high-court-rules-private-citizens-can-fix-roads-then-charge-government-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/163813\/high-court-rules-private-citizens-can-fix-roads-then-charge-government-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"High court rules private citizens can fix roads – then charge government for it"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent High Court decision has likely set a new precedent that could allow for private citizens and bodies to\u00a0perform basic service delivery functions with taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n

In the judgement<\/a><\/strong>, the Eastern Cape High Court ordered the provincial Roads Department to reimburse farmers who carry out maintenance themselves, subject to strict conditions including giving the department 30 days notice of the repairs and obtaining at least two independent quotes.<\/p>\n

At the time of the judgement, president of Agri Eastern Cape, Douglas Steyn, told the Eastern Cape paper, Dispatch <\/a>that the ruling would likely to have far-reaching consequences around the country as other farmers and civil society groups will follow suit.<\/p>\n

This was confirmed by\u00a0civil group Afriforum, who noted that it has subsequently begun using similar legal means to provide basic service delivery functions around the country.<\/p>\n

Speaking in the 12 March edition of the Rapport<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0head of AfriForum\u2019s local governance division,\u00a0Marcus Pawson, noted that it had not only been reimbursed for roads but other basic services such as the removal of trees, \u00a0and the replacement of water pumps.<\/p>\n

The Rapport also noted that Pawson and Afriforum announced\u00a0plans to use the judgment to set precedent in other provincial jurisdictions so that people would not have to be reimbursed on a case by case basis but could then implement the fixes using specific legal guidelines.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0Sanral quietly hikes e-toll prices \u2013 here\u2019s how much more you will be paying<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent High Court decision has likely set a new precedent that could allow for private citizens and bodies to perform basic service delivery functions with taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":98443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-163813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163813"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376107,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163813\/revisions\/376107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}