STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD SECRETARY-GENERAL AND MEMBER OF THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT
7 July 2021
The City of Cape Town has reneged on its agreement to collect portable toilets from KTC and Nyanga leaving residents to live with the consequences for the past eight days.
In 2013, portaloos – or portapotties, as some residents call them – were introduced as an interim measure to provide services to residents living without sewerage infrastructure.
There was significant resistance to this form of sanitation service that led to the infamous pooh-throwing protests at prominent places like the Cape Town International Airport and Western Cape Provincial Parliament.
Residents ultimately agreed to accept portaloos on the basis of an agreement with the City that they would be collected for cleaning and replaced with empty containers five times a week.
Residents should have had seven collections since the last service on 29 June 2021, but the City has failed to get its contract with service providers renewed on time to provide uninterrupted service.
Last night residents protested the failure of this most basic service and the conditions in which they are forced to live – with ten days of faecal content and the stench.
Instead of sending in the sanitation department to sort out the failed sanitation service, the City sent Law Enforcement to control the protestors.
The fact that the City has more law enforcement capacity than sanitation services capacity says all we need to know about the current City of Cape Town government.
I have written to Mayor Dan Plato asking him to step in and resolve this. I don’t expect a reply since his government regard themselves as unaccountable to residents and to parliamentary oversight.
Residents can hold them accountable by exercising their right to vote in the local government elections.