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DA: 88,127 bucket toilets an affront on the dignity of our people

Nomvula Mokonyane
Photo by Duane Daws
Nomvula Mokonyane

7th October 2015

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Twenty-one years into our democracy, the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) is still failing to meet its targets to eradicate bucket toilets in both formal and informal communities which are still suffering the indignity of poor sanitation.

The DWS’s 2014/15 annual report indicates that the department not only missed its target for the financial year to eradicate 88,127 bucket toilets in formal areas, but that it also failed outright in reaching its target in informal areas.

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Additionally, the department underspent its budget by 15% in the year under consideration - only managing to spend 35% of the National Sanitation Service Programme’s allocation, leaving more than R700 million unspent.

This is an affront on the dignity of our people – who are suffering every day in these horrible conditions.  It is completely unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue any longer.

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The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane owes South Africa an apology. I urge her to speak out about her continued failure and to brief Parliament – urgently – on what she is planning to do to end this.

In yet another blow to the dignity of informal communities, the DWS spectacularly missed its targets with regard to eradicating bucket toilets in informal areas: Not one of the 92,000 bucket toilets was replaced, because the department claimed to be concentrating only on those residing in formal areas.

Then, even despite its adjusted count of 58,453 bucket toilets in formal areas, the department only managed to replace 20,581 such toilets during the financial year – another real failure for the dignity of South Africans.

In another alarming failure of service delivery, the DWS planned to reach 63,118 households through the Rural Household Infrastructure Programme, designed to eradicate the sanitation backlog, but only 9,347 were reached.

On several occasions this year, Minister Mokonyane promised that bucket toilets in formal areas would be eradicated by December 2015.

The department’s explanation, in the Annual Report, for not achieving this was: “Lack of adequate bulk infrastructure in projects; cash flow challenges by implementing agents; difficult soil or hard rock conditions, and service delivery protests in projects.”

Yet, in the Western Cape - where the DA governs - the last recorded total figure was of 223 bucket toilets in informal settlements and zero in formal settlements for the City of Cape Town. StatsSA’s Non-financial census of municipalities released yesterday shows that the DA-run Western Cape provides the greatest number of free basic services to the poor; does so for free for those who earn below a threshold, and does so better than ANC-governed municipalities. The DA-run City of Cape Town spends 67% of its budget on services to and upliftment of poor communities

This is the quality of service delivery which we want to deliver in more and more places across South Africa.

It is clear, both in her department’s under-spending and in its failed targets, that proper systems are not in place for this promise to be fulfilled. We look forward to hearing her explanation for this, as well as her proposed solutions.

The DA will continue to fight for the dignity of all South Africans and to hold government to account for the brazen disregard in delivering basic services to poor communities.

 

Issued by DA

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