The ANC "didn't know" about 1600 toilets in a Free State municipality which have been left without enclosures for the past eight years, secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Monday.

"We didn't know about open toilets," he told journalists at as press briefing at Luthuli House in Johannesburg.

He added that the ANC would take serious action against this.

The toilets are located in Rammulotsi, near Viljoenskroon, in the ANC-run Moqhaka municipality.

"It should not happen, it cannot happen," he said.

Earlier, SA Human Rights Commission spokesman, Vincent Moaga, said the body's legal committee would discuss the issue after a complaint had been laid with the commission on the issue.

The Sunday Times quoted municipal acting technical services manager Mike Lelaka as saying that an audit indicated there were 1620 toilets left "unattended" and blamed lack of funding.

The matter was apparently the result of an agreement between the municipality and local residents, that the municipality would provide the sanitation and residents erect the enclosures. Residents have denied this.

A similar matter attracted huge attention in the Western Cape recently.
The Western Cape High Court last month ordered the DA-led City of Cape Town to enclose 1316 toilets in the Makhaza settlement on the Cape Flats.