City increases ratio from 1 toilet for 9,6 households to 1 for 4,3 households

10 July 2016

Since 2006, the City of Cape Town, through its prioritisation of sanitation delivery, has increased the ratio of toilets to households from 1:9,6 to 1:4,3 despite the pressures brought on as a result of population increase. The proportion of full-flush toilets has also increased from 15% to 30% of total toilet provision.

As the City approaches the Municipal Elections in August, it is taking stock of what has so far been achieved, as well as what steps are necessary to ensure a positive and empowering trajectory for our city. The provision of sanitation, a commonly-used indicator of how well the City is performing, especially in informal settlements, is one such area which we are currently assessing.

Since 2016, great strides have been made to implement sanitation systems to residents in informal settlements. At the time of the 2006 Municipal Elections little progress had been made in this regard and only 15 000 toilets had been provided to informal settlements in the city.

Of these, approximately 3 000 were bucket toilets and only 2 500 of the total toilets provided were connected to the sewage system. At the time, the ratio of toilets to households was one toilet for more than nine households (1:9,6). It must be noted that back then, the population in our informal settlement areas were lower than what it is today.

The provision of sanitation was thus prioritised and City’s officials set about to accelerate the rollout of taps and toilets.

But in as much as developed South Africa was attempting to catch up to and economically compete with the developed world, informal settlements had received only rudimentary infrastructure investment and many of these areas were effectively undeveloped. Backbone infrastructure, such as piping and effluent treatment, were woefully insufficient and the planning required for these critical installations was in its infancy.

The going has been hard but 10 years later, significant progress has been made. By March 2016 over 50 000 toilets have been provided, of which 15 000 were full-flush. In addition, the proportion of full-flush toilets has increased from approximately 15% to 30%, and the ratio of households to toilets fell from one toilet for more than nine households (1:9,6) to one toilet for just over four households (1:4,3).

Further to that, all but a tiny minority of the black buckets have been removed from service, with those residents still using this typology choosing to do so over all other available options. Factor in the accelerated population growth as South Africans move to Cape Town in search of a better life and this achievement becomes even more noteworthy.

However, there is much work to do. The City knows that many residents still live in unforgiving conditions. To tackle our enhanced sanitation delivery efforts, space must be created for these services in informal settlements, either directly through informal settlement upgrade programmes or indirectly through the economic mobility that comes with a prosperous local economy. The population growth has led to less space for the installation of full-flush services by the Water and Sanitation Department and further upgrades will necessarily be more resource intensive than before.

For improvements to informal settlements to continue at anything close to the same pace as what has been achieved over the past decade, cooperation between the City and residents must be enhanced. Apart from the rampant vandalism that consistently draws resources away from where they can be used to develop new infrastructure, certain communities hold the belief that if they block the rollout of alternative sanitation it would somehow strong-arm the City into offering them a housing opportunity, or at least a better level of full-flush sanitation than the area can support. This belief is completely false.

The City’s Housing Database, from which candidates for housing opportunities are selected, operates independently from the Department of Water and Sanitation, as do the upgrade programmes run by the City’s Human Settlements Directorate. The City will always install full-flush infrastructure wherever we can.

Just 10 years ago the sanitation picture was significantly bleaker, and while we still have some way to go I have every faith that the machine that we have had the chance to develop over our term of office is in good shape to take the City forward.

There is no immediate solution to the sanitation problem in Cape Town. What we have at our disposal, however, is an experienced, driven and resourceful team who have proven their ability to meet this challenge head-on. Their delivery record is unparalleled and, with the help of residents, we can continue to make progress.

Alderman Ernest Sonnenberg is Mayoral Committee Member for Utility Services, City of Cape Town.