City, department shift blame over messy communal toilets

While the community of Kliptown Ward 19 informal settlement in Soweto continues to live under unhygienic conditions due to communal toilets, City of Joburg and the Gauteng department of human settlements and infrastructure development have been pointing fingers at each other.

Both the city and the department say it is the other's responsibility to deal with the problem, and this is while about seven households share one toilet and complain of lack of hygiene.

According to the city, human settlements is the custodian of informal settlements. Therefore, they can only act on the matter when they have been redirected by it.

Spokesperson for Johannesburg Water, Nombuso Shabalala, said: “When basic services such as water tanks and ventilated improved pit/chemical toilets are required, Johannesburg Water receives a directive from the department of human settlements to provide those water and sanitation services.”

However, the department said it was not its responsibility as it deals with the issue of building, housing and informal settlements matter and that communal toilets was the city's functionality, which is water tanks and chemical toilets.

“I don't know if it's laziness on their part to do their work or if it is just to push everything to the province. Each municipality has its informal settlements and it knows the number of informal settlements it has and also, it knows their needs. Then they write to the province and state that because of their budget constraints or whatever issue, they want assistance from us and we provide that assistance,” spokesperson Castro Ngobese said.

According to residents, women and children are the most affected members of the community by these communal toilets.

The toilets have no sanitisers or anti-bacterial chemicals to wipe the seats, and a dry toilet paper can only do so much.

The entire Kliptown is a health hazard and residents said they want flushing toilets.

Resident Dolly Mbolekwa, 44, who grew up using the communal toilets, said: “These toilets are a huge risk to us women, because we find ourselves having infections that we don’t understand. You must sit on a seat that has menstrual remains from someone and these easy loos only look clean after being drained.

“We have to go to the clinic every six weeks to get infection medications for rash and itchiness from our private parts. This is our only way of keeping ourselves protected from these unhygienic toilets,” she added. 

Despite the toilets having doors, there is no fence or a wall for privacy, and the entire community can see what's going on inside.

Community leader Sandile Mqhayi, 50, said they had been using the toilets for almost 30 years.

“We've been using these toilets for a long time; since the beginning of democracy around 1996. “I think we've about 200 communal toilets in our area.

“The worst part is that these toilets are drained twice a week – on Monday and Thursday – in the mornings when we're having our breakfast. Afterwards, the entire community is permeated with the smell of waste,” Mqhayi said.

The toilets are also very far from homes, which means residents have to walk a long distance to relieve themselves at night.

Dumisani Mqhwathi, 46, a member of the Informal Settlement Network (ISN), said it was not safe to go to the toilet at night.

In most sections, he said, people have to  accompany one another to the loo.

Residents have also bought lockers for the toilets to prevent them from getting dirty from being used by passersby. 

Ward 19 councillor Siphiwe Simelane said the communal toilet issue has been presented to the City of Johannesburg and they have written three emails to the team. He said the city's solution was that they would provide VIP toilets that have ventilators as soon as they are financially stable to include Kliptown on their budget.  

“We are currently busy with the Joburg Roads Agency project and are working on including the sewer so that it becomes part of this project. So, when we build roads the under[ground] pipes infrastructure will be included in the next project,” said Simelane.