VANDERBIJLPARK – The Marikana squatter camp in Bophelong has been plunged into a sanitation crisis that residents are calling a living nightmare.
For the past two weeks, the camp’s septic toilets have not been serviced, leaving the community with no choice but to endure the foul stench and unsanitary conditions that have turned their lives upside down.
Residents have made repeated attempts to get answers from the municipality, but their cries for help have been met with deafening silence.
The situation has reached a boiling point, with makeshift toilets overflowing, attracting swarms of flies and forcing desperate residents to seek relief in nearby homes that have flushable toilets.
When the Ster arrived, the sight was nothing short of horrifying with piles of waste-filled toilets overrun with flies.
One frustrated resident, Nthabiseng Mofokeng, described the ordeal they are faced with.
“Toilets are piled up. You can imagine what happens when one needs to relieve themselves. We run around the area to find better toilets to use,” she said.
Another resident, Sipho Mngomezulu, voiced his concerns for the children in the informal settlement.
“We have young kids who can’t be exposed to using such toilets due to health and safety issues. Now we constantly rely on neighbours in the nearby extensions who have flushing toilets,” he said.
Ward 6 Councillor Mthethunzima Time admitted that the situation is a headache for everyone involved.
He further explained that the servicing of 414 settlements has been halted due to the termination of contracts responsible for draining 113 chemical toilets.
“In the past week, services have been disrupted. The municipality reached out to Rand Water to assist in the meantime, but we apologize to our people for the inconvenience. Plans are underway to resume services,” said Time.
Adding to the growing tension, Emfuleni Local Municipality’s MMC for Human Settlement, Hassan Mako, addressed the crisis.
In his statement, Mako said that the interim sanitation services provided by the Gauteng Department of Human Settlement (GDHS) through the Housing Development Agency were never meant to be a long-term solution.
He also revealed that the GDHS, in collaboration with all Gauteng municipalities, is piloting alternative sanitation solutions to tackle the problem.
