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Brett Herron, ID Councillor and Spokesperson for the ID Caucus in the City of Cape Town, says the ID is ‘alarmed and deeply concerned' by a report in today's Cape Times ("Half a million in city have no sanitation"), which claims that more than "100 000 households, or half a million people, in Cape Town do not have access to basic sanitation".

According to the report, based on research by Water Dialogues International, 37% of the 128 000 households in informal settlements have no access to any sanitation system, while two-thirds of these residents have been supplied with bucket sanitation options, which are not considered a basic form of sanitation.

‘The ID has raised its concerns regarding the City's service delivery reporting. In fact, at the last full council meeting we said that the reporting of 100% delivery of sanitation and water services is misleading because it excludes hundreds of thousands of people living in backyards across the city,' Mr Herron says.

‘If today's report is correct then our concerns have been justified but, alarmingly, they are even exacerbated since it would mean that we cannot even rely on the City's claims regarding households in informal settlements.'

The City's 2008/9 annual report presented at a 27 January 2010 Council meeting claims that the City has achieved 100% coverage "of households with access to basic levels of sanitation" and 100% coverage of "households with access to basic level of water".

‘The Water Dialogues International report raises a number of concerns - however, most disturbing among these is that the information we have been given is unreliable, which would seriously undermine our oversight responsibilities.

‘It seems that the City is manipulating statistics for appearances and is over-reporting and under-delivering - and once again it is the poor that suffer,' Herron says.

Councillor Herron said that the ID would be raising this at portfolio committee meetings and will also submit a written question to the Mayor for reply at the next council meeting later this month.