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Drive with John Perlman. Brought to you by Telkom Business. Possible begins here on 702. You're with John Perlman on 702. Right, let's focus our attention now at 19 minutes past five on that South African Human Rights Commission examination of water provision and wastewater treatment in Gauteng. To look at this, we're joined by Kulu Liwe Sitole, who is Senior Legal Officer at the SAHRC. Mr. Sitole, welcome.

Thanks very much for your time. Before we talk about some of the findings and recommendations, I was very much struck by the presentation earlier today by your colleague Dr. Henk Bosoff that actually you really struggled to get the municipalities to attend the hearings at all. They all had to be subpoenaed, and even then, one of them, the Rand West City Local Municipality, didn't turn up. What did that tell you at the start of your inquiry that the

Most important people in the conversation were not even keen to attend. Good afternoon. Thank you for having me. I think you told us what we already saw in terms of the complaints we received from communities. So the Human Rights Commission is an oversight body. We shouldn't be the first point of call when there's service delivery issues. But the fact that we have an influx of complaints coming to us because people have gone to the municipalities and they are getting no

Response, it is an indication of failing municipalities. And this is exactly what we saw. Municipal managers did not want to come to give us evidence as their accounting officers. We had to subpoena them for them to come. Some of them we had to repeatedly send the superior notices. Landwest did not send the submissions on time. They did not even come on the day. They did not come even today, which just shows the disregard that the municipalities.

Have not only for the communities that they serve, but also for the Human Rights Commission as the oversight body that is entrusted to safeguard the rights in the Bill of Rights. And that is astonishing. One of the important things that your report says is we're not faithful. Yes, there are seasonal issues around water. Obviously, with an El Nino looming, there may well be supply issues.