The Democratic Alliance has raised concerns around the number of toilets provided to Zandspruit residents, as well the crowding of their use during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Ward 100 and 114 PR councillor Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku claimed that residents in the Silvertown area of Zandspruit only had four toilets available to share between 600 people.
“Having served in Zandspruit for the last two years, I have witnessed first-hand the desperate conditions that residents have had to endure. Under the DA Administration over 11 000 toilets were delivered to informal settlements across the City,” said Kayser-Echeozonjoku.
She said that the delivery of this number of toilets was done to alleviate the situation where hundreds of people have to share a small number of communal toilets. Kayser-Echeozonjoku said that over a month, she received numerous complaints from frustrated residents.
She said, “I was invited by the community to see just how intolerable the situation had become. What I encountered was deeply distressing. The four toilets used by the community are located across a busy road. Upon our arrival, the toilets were locked. I was informed by the residents that the toilets are always locked and that the keys to these toilets are held by residents who live adjacent to them.”
She said that this had become a source of conflict between those who control access by holding the keys on one side of the road, and those who come from the opposite end.
For immediate relief, residents have to use one of two communal shallow pit toilets. When those toilets are blocked or overflow, they report it to Joburg Water.
After conducting her investigation, it is believed that the contractor employed by the City to clean the temporary toilets demands a R150 bribe from residents to complete the job. “We immediately informed the Member of Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Environment Infrastructure and Service Delivery (EISD) of the situation, and requested his immediate intervention,” she said.
Deputy Director in the office of the MMC Stan Itshegetseng refused to acknowledge the claims made in Kayser-Echeozonjoku’s statement, saying she had not been in contact with them. He said, “We can, however, confirm that we have received a letter from the Democratic Alliance’s councillor Nicole Van Dyk, which was escalated to the MMC’s attention on 16 April. In her letter, she alleged that 600 residents of the informal settlement were sharing four toilets.
“Our investigation with Joburg Water indicated that the area in question has 24 chemical toilets and eight water tanks servicing 149 households which were provided by Johannesburg Water at the time of receipt of the letter. We had long made arrangements to add 10 chemical toilets as a response to the Covid-19 regulations to reduce the number of users per toilet. Since receiving the letter, we have also delivered a further 10 more toilets.”
Kayser-Echeozonjoku added that every day, the Zandspruit community risks exposure to severe health problems.”What the residents require in the short-term, are a larger number of temporary toilets which would reduce the number of people relying on just a small number of toilets. This can be achieved by using the unspent capital budget to procure toilets,” she concluded.
