ANC’s assault on human dignity: only 5.7% of bucket toilets eradicated 

7 October 2016

The Auditor-General’s 2015/16 Annual Report on the Department of Water and Sanitation reveals that the department only managed to do away with 1 838 of the 32 500 bucket toilets it planned to eradicate this year, a meagre 5.66%. 

This shows an absolute lack of political will by the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane and her department to restore dignity to the poor who still have to use demeaning bucket toilets. 

Statistics (Stats) SA’s 2016 Community Survey revealed that a total of 409 880 surveyed households had no access to any toilet facilities. The largest number of these were located in the Eastern Cape, where 104 533 out of 1 773 395 households in the Eastern Cape had no access to toilet facilities as at March 2016. This constitutes 6% of all surveyed households. Only 740 529 of the 1 773 395 surveyed households had access to toilet facilities other than a chemical or flushing toilet

More specifically in Nelson Mandela Bay, according to the 2016 Local Government Handbook, in the 2013/14 financial year there were 29 429 bucket toilets in use, and 17 240 ventilated pit latrines. According to Stats SA, 35% of all remaining bucket toilets nationally were located in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. 

Minister Mokonyane has perpetually underperformed in this portfolio, doing little to help those South Africans most in need. Indeed, this reveals yet again that the ANC governs like the lives of poor South Africans do not matter. 

The DA has made it a top priority to eradicate bucket toilets in the places where we now govern. No person deserves to live in such an environment and we will work hard to restore the human dignity the ANC has disgracefully ignored.

Issued by Leon Basson, DA Deputy Shadow Minister of Water and Sanitation, 7 October 2016