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Mokonyane ignores NMB bucket toilet crisis

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Dear MyPE

The inhumane sanitation which the ANC government continues to ignore in Nelson Mandela Bay must be ended. It is a desperately sad reality that our people in this Metro still use the highest number of bucket toilets in any Metro in South Africa. The ANC government is keeping people using undignified sanitation because it doesn’t care enough to react.

As my colleague Leon Basson MP said from Parliament last week: Minister Mokonyane is dodging and avoiding releasing this year’s Blue and Green Drop reports, because they indicate the very sad state of water and sanitation delivery where the ANC governs.

In the style of the ANC as a whole, of Mayor Danny Jordaan and ANC Mayors before him, Minister Nomvula Mokoyane has ignored pleas and calls for solving NMB’s bucket toilet crisis. I reached out to the Minister after personally seeing bucket toilets in staggering numbers around our Metro day after day.

I sent the Minister a letter on the 13th October 2015, requesting the following:

  • Immediate expedition of the Bucket Eradication Programme and to work to full eradication of all buckets by the 31st July 2016 – a reasonable period for the dignity of our people.
  • Oversight of sanitation expenditure in the NMBMM council to ensure that Mayor Jordaan’s current government spends all funding allocated to eradicating bucket toilets.

In the interest of resolving this crisis with haste, I asked for a response within 14 days. It has been 27 days since the Minister’s PA acknowledged receipt of the letter and to date, no response has been received at all, and no action has been taken in NMB.

The Minister has chosen to abandon Nelson Mandela Bay’s people, and to ignore the bucket toilet crisis. This is sadly consistent with the NMB municipality’s refusal to cooperate with the SAHRC in its bucket toilet investigation.

It seems that the ANC, in every sphere of government, simply isn’t interested in caring for our peoples’ right to dignified sanitation.

We need an accountable government which cares for its people. This disdain for the plight of our communities is unacceptable and must be voted against in Election 2016.

The DA is set on winning Nelson Mandela Bay to deliver services to the people, and to address the undignified inhumane bucket toilet system.

Regards

Athol Trollip

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Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.