In September 2010 Judge Molemela interdicted Ngwathe Local Municipality from discharging raw sewage into the Vaal River at Parys. The sewage never stopped. By 2024 it ran daily through the streets of Parys, Heilbron, Koppies and Vredefort and into the river, and AfriForum, with community groups Save Ngwathe and Mooi Parys, went back to court.
In Afriforum NPC v Ngwathe Local Municipality and 14 Others (2264/2024) [2025] ZAFSHC 184, delivered on 20 June 2025, Judge Johannes Daffue found the municipality dysfunctional on every axis: municipal managers rotating since 2022, the CFO post vacant, collections collapsed, R1.467 billion owed to Eskom and about R1 billion to Rand Water, and a R2.099 billion budget for 2025/26 that Provincial Treasury had rejected because it assumed 100% collection. He rejected the municipality's claim that its water was "free of fecal contamination" and that intervention was "unwarranted", and the province's claim that it was "already doing everything it should be doing to support and monitor the municipality". The court ordered the Free State Executive Council to dissolve the council under section 139, appoint an administrator, impose a financial recovery plan and report to the court every three months, with costs against the province. The municipality sought leave to appeal.
The judgment sits alongside the court-ordered administration at Mafube and the Emfuleni sewage litigation as the third time a court has had to do a province's constitutional job on the Vaal.