Cast in picturesque backdrops with lush lands to the west and azure waters to the east, the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal is often regarded as the jewel of the province by tourists.
But underneath all the lure of the south coast, which is situated within the Ugu District, the reality is that thousands of South Africans, mostly black still use buckets and pits as toilets.
The Ugu district is made up of four local municipalities, namely, uMdoni, Umzumbe, uMuziwabantu and Ray Nkonyeni.
Around 15% of this district, including its four local municipalities, are regarded as urban areas, while the remaining 85% is rural and has a population of just under 800,000 people, according to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA).
As of October 2023, 35,356 people have access to a toilet that is connected to a sewage system, according to the Ugu government.
This figure was displayed during the recent South African Local Government Association (Salga) conference in Durban on Thursday, in a presentation by acting municipal manager Vela Mazibuko.
Mazibuko presented the numbers regarding access to toilets as follows:
– 6,044 people use a toilet connected to a septic tank.
– 14,590 people use a “chemical toilet”, which is those blue or green plastic housed toilets.
– 63,201 people use a pit toilet with ventilation.
– 28,637 people use a pit toilet without ventilation.
– 3,613 people use a bucket toilet, which the municipality collects for them.
– 2,147 people use a bucket toilet which they have to dispose of themselves.
– 3,853 people use an “ecological toilet”.
– 9,141 people use “other” as a toilet, which was not properly defined by Mazibuko at the time of his presentation.
– 7,565 people do not have a toilet.
According to the Ugu government, a 31% backlog in sanitation has been identified, which they expect will take the next 17 years to fix.
The 31% backlog means people have no sanitation or inappropriate sanitation.
Mazibuko did not state the reasons why the backlog will take 17 years to fix.
The issue of water in Ugu has also been under an intense spotlight, even more so after it was acknowledged by President Cyril Ramaphosa in Parliament, and a focus point of the South African Human Rights Commission’s KZN water investigation.
As many would know, water and sanitation go hand in hand.
Leon Gabarde, ward 12 councillor in the Ray Nkonyeni Municipality detailed the ghastly circumstances of an elderly woman in his ward, who had to use a spade as a toilet because there was no water.
“A couple of years ago, I was going to a council meeting. This was while we were in the middle of a dry spell. I think we didn’t have water for like 31 days.
“An elderly lady, she was 83 at the time, a devout Muslim, asked me why I am going to the council meeting. She told me to carry a message for her to the council. She said: ‘Please tell them that they have reduced me to nothing. For the last couple of weeks, I, as a Muslim woman, had to use a spade as a toilet and throw it away because there was no water to flush my toilet with’.
“Imagine, an 83 year-old woman telling you this?
“I can give you countless instances about how much residents have to suffer without water. It is common knowledge now,” Gabarde said.
IOL