The man above, on the right, is Paul Baise.

He’s a Constantia resident who, when everyone else was panicking about the water shortage in Cape Town, saw an opportunity.

He decided to sell water from a nearby mountain stream by the truckload, and the folks in his area who wanted to keep their swimming pools full despite the water restrictions were happy to hand over their cash.

News24 with more:

Angry residents say they have complained to various authorities for more than a year about Paul Baise selling mountain water from his Rhodes Drive home in Constantia, but have drawn a blank.

Baise had allegedly told a neighbour he was making R15 000 a day from the water. He denies this.

One of Baise’s neighbours, Kevin McGivern (below), says that the trucks would start doing the rounds at 7AM, and would continue delivering water throughout the day.

“Some trucks were petrol-tanker size. I don’t understand why law enforcement can’t do something. Guys washing their cars get a fine, but not this. I sent an email to the City of Cape Town, but got no reply. The cops said they couldn’t do anything. Everybody is just passing the buck,” McGivern said.

Now, South African National Parks (SANParks) is taking action. SANParks applied to the Western Cape High Court for an interdict to stop Baise from using the mountain water “beyond a reasonable amount”.

SANParks attorney Mathew Coetzee says that Baise has a right to a “reasonable amount” of the mountain water, but he clearly exceeded that.

Baise claims that he has done nothing wrong.

“I’m allowed to do so. No one looks at the Water Services Act. It doesn’t say you can’t sell water for pools and Jo-Jo tanks if it is under two million litres a year. But not for drinking purposes or industrial.”

He said the amount he sold in a year was less than two million litres, but was not able to put a figure to it.

“It varies. The way they (neighbours) carry on you would think there were 20 000-litre trucks by the minute.”

In the 1950s a law was passed that allowed Constantia residents to use the water from the stream behind their properties for personal use.

This is the water Baise has been selling. He has installed three 5.5 thousand-litre tanks next to his driveway, where the mountain water is collected and transferred to tanks on the trucks.

Asked how much he charged, Baise said 8c to 10c a litre.

News24 has seen an invoice where a Llandudno resident was charged R1 750 for the delivery of 5 000 litres of water to his house – 35c a litre.

The plot thickens, though, because Baise isn’t only facing charges for selling water. He’s also being charged with assault.

The Constantia water issue had given rise to three court challenges. In addition to SANParks acting against Baise, Baise has charged SANParks with malicious damage to property, as SANParks officials allegedly cut his water pipes running from the stream.

SANParks maintains that his right to the water is for a point lower down, off SANParks’ land.

A third court case involves Baise and his neighbour McGivern. Baise has been charged with assault, after he allegedly tried to throttle McGivern during an argument about receivers that opened the gate shared by the three properties.

McGivern said in a police statement that Baise had become violent, “and threw me to the ground. He continued to throttle/strangle me, shouting that I had ‘caused all this shit with National Parks’ to prevent him selling water”.

The assault case has been postponed for now, while Sputnik Ratau, spokesperson for the Department of Water and Sanitation, says anyone selling water needed a licence.

The incident is under investigation.

Never a dull moment in the ‘burbs, hey?

[source:news24]