Amathole District Municipality: Told Court Water Shortage Was "God's Problem"

Amathole District Municipality in the Eastern Cape earned national infamy when, in response to residents' urgent court application for emergency water delivery, municipal lawyers argued that the water shortage was caused by drought — "an act of God" — and therefore not the municipality's responsibility. The court rejected this argument, noting that the municipality had a constitutional obligation to ensure water supply regardless of drought conditions, and that the drought had been predictable and manageable with proper planning.

The court found that the municipality had failed to maintain water infrastructure, failed to plan for drought conditions that were well-forecasted, and failed to implement emergency measures in a timely manner. While the municipality blamed God, residents — many in remote rural areas of the former Ciskei — had been without reliable water supply for months.

The financial position was equally dire. The Auditor-General issued a disclaimer audit opinion — the worst possible outcome — meaning that Amathole's financial records were so incomplete, unreliable, or absent that auditors could not form any opinion whatsoever on the municipality's financial statements. Hundreds of millions in public funds were effectively unaccounted for.

The combination of a municipality that cannot provide water, blames God for its failures, and cannot account for its finances represents the absolute nadir of local government. Amathole residents, many of them among the poorest in South Africa, were doubly abandoned: denied services and denied accountability.