Bucket toilets: Kliptown residents in limbo as politicians block plans to build outside toilets

Residents of Kliptown in Soweto say they have lost hope in politicians ever coming to their rescue after the Joburg City council blocked a motion by ActionSA to develop a plan aimed at eradicating the bucket toilet system around the city.

When challenged by ActionSA over the Patriotic Alliance (PA) voting with the ANC and EFF-led coalition, PA leader Gayton Mckenzie said he had given the instruction to do so.

Kliptown houses falling apart

PA national spokesperson Steve Motale said they could not give people new toilets while their houses are falling apart.

Motale said houses in the area earmarked for the building of outside toilets were dilapidated and needed serious attention.

“The PA in the City of Joburg is in the process of putting a motion to rebuild those houses with inside toilets. Outside toilets that are proposed, which we voted against are a legacy of apartheid.

“Action SA, who are your sources, have absolutely no regard for poor African people. No white person shall vote for an outside toilet for a white person. Why should we?”

He said PA councillors correctly voted against “this nonsensical motion” of building outside toilets.

“Our people want houses, and with PA in charge, they will get those houses. Our councillors were there when people needed them the most. Kliptown was flooded last November, not a single political leader visited the place.

“The PA fed, clothed and gave shelter to those destitute people. People must not play politics
with people’s lives.

To the PA, the life of every single South African matters, especially the poorest of the poor. We will neither abandon them nor try to score cheap political points at their expense.”

Promises

Kliptown is one of the oldest residential districts in the country and residents still linger in poverty, using buckets to relieve themselves.

When The Citizen visited the area yesterday it stank of faeces, children were playing on streets flowing with sewage, people were salvaging bottles and cans to earn a living and potholes were the order of the day.

According to the Gauteng government, more than a million people were waiting for a Reconstruction and Development Programme house.

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Furious Kliptown resident Eric Gelouw said: “F*k these politicians. My granddaughter has to sht in a bucket because she can’t use the mobile toilets, they are always full.

“We do not believe the politicians will ever help us. The only reason we are still surviving is God. We have been using these mobile toilets for more than seven years. With the bucket system it was better because we knew every two days, they’d pick it up.

Now we just hope they pick it up. When the toilets are full, all the sh*t runs down the entire street, so I have no hope anything will change and I have given up on all these politicians.”

‘Cheap politicking’

Another resident, Glendaline Brand, said they had been promised houses and toilets for a long
time.

“Some people are even dead, that’s how long they have been promising people houses. Those people have children who are also waiting for houses and toilets. Right now, we live the way it is.”

Brand said the toilets were the biggest problem in the area and to protect their children, she has
taught them to use the bucket instead of the mobile toilets.

“I teach my children to use a potty because I can go throw it out myself.”

She said despite not being happy with her situation, there was nothing she could do about it.

“I was forced to take it the way it is. I do not even vote despite them coming here because they promise people things that don’t exist. I will never vote,

“These things they are saying will never happen, you have to fix it yourself if you want things to come right,” Brand said.

ActionSA’s caucus leader Sithembiso Majola described the rejection of the motion as “cheap politicking”, as it would have ensured adequate sanitation for underprivileged communities.

“These communities will continue to be subjected to undignified sanitation with the current chemical toilets not being serviced and some in a state of decay.

“People living in Kliptown informal settlements must know that the ANC and EFF refused to agree to provide them with better sanitation,” Majola said.

Johannesburg Mayor Thapelo Amad said land had been identified where they would do work
phase-by-phase to better the lives of Kliptown and Eldorado Park residents.

Amad blamed the situation on apartheid spatial planning. He agreed that change and development in the past had been slow, but promised things would be different.

– lungam@citizen.co.za

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