The African National Congress Youth League's (ANCYL) national office has rejected as "lies" reports that its Dullah Omar branch plans to vandalise the City of Cape Town.

"Do you call yourself a journalist?" ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu asked a Sapa reporter. "How can you tell such lies."

Earlier on Tuesday, the ANCYL's Dullah Omar branch, in the Western Cape, called on the youth to vandalise the City of Cape Town over poor service delivery.

"We are going to destroy everything and make the city ungovernable," threatened ANCYL Dullah Omar regional secretary Loyiso Nkohle.

"We are calling on all youth to do this [vandalise the city], especially those living in informal settlements."

Nkohle's deputy Chumile Sali said that the ANCYL Dullah Omar branch was doing this to expose those parts of the city where the Democratic Alliance (DA) had failed to deliver services.

"The people residing in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, are not incapable of closing the N2 Highway and vandalising city council property," he said.

On Monday, ANCYL members and community leaders led residents in the destruction of toilet enclosures the city council had erected hours earlier. They taunted mayor Dan Plato to arrest them.

"The African people's dignity has been undermined by the DA. It is time to take action," said Sali.

While he denied that the ANCYL was promoting violence, ANCYL Dullah Omar regional treasurer Andile Lili said that the ANCYL did not intend being violent, but was being forced to by the city.

"Anything with the city emblem on it will de destroyed," he said, adding: "The youth league will be vandalising the city."

The ANCYL Dullah Omar branch had written an open letter to Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale asking him to intervene in the toilet debacle.

"Our complaint is based on the reality that African people residing in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, are forced to shit in full view of the public," it wrote.

"This satanic action by the city council is tantamount to gross human rights violations and undermines the people's right for their dignity to be protected as stipulated in section 10 of the constitution."

The ANCYL Dullah Omar said that it lodged a complaint against the city with the South African Human Rights Commission in January, but had not yet received a response.

It would not wait for Sexwale's response to proceed with its plan of action.

It was unhappy with the corrugated metal sheets the city had used to build enclosures around the toilets and wanted concrete instead.

In 2007, the city built a toilet for each household in the Makhaza area, which each household agreed to enclose. However, since 2008, about 50 Makhaza families had been relieving themselves in full view of the public.

Plato told the Cape Times on Monday that he had recently met with the ANCYL and community leaders and they had agreed to tell residents that open toilets would be enclosed.

He said that the corrugated metal sheets used to enclose them were not inferior to the material people had used to build the homes they were living in and that if people wanted to destroy new structures he would "walk away".

On Tuesday, DA leader Helen Zille described the destruction of the toilet enclosures as part of an ANC campaign of violence and intimidation against the opposition in the Western Cape.

She would ask for a meeting with President Jacob Zuma to bring the incidents of intimidation against the DA to his attention, Zille said at a press conference in Cape Town on Tuesday.

"He must speak out against the culture of violence in the ANC, rein in the members of his party and take action against those who try to intimidate other political parties," she said.