About 250 residents of Govan Mbeki Village in Gqeberha protested by emptying buckets of excrement on the R75 Uitenhage Road and blocking the Chatty Dip junction with stones and burning tires from 6am on Thursday morning. The protesters were mainly women wearing nightgowns.
The contractor was not paid
He said the ten latrines shared by 585 households had not been cleaned since before Christmas.
A Bahluping consultant has stopped toilet cleaning services in 22 informal settlements because it says the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has not paid for four months.
“This municipality does not respect us. They have to pay the contractor. We are not baboons and we will not release ourselves in the bush,” said Jazz Nantu, a community leader. “Our last toilet was collected… a week before Christmas.”
He said that people relieve themselves in bushes or in buckets and empty these in ditches near the huts.
“Then in this hot situation the smell is unbearable and buzzed with flies. The whole place smells like poo and piss,” he said.
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We saw a woman make a second trip to empty one of the overflowing toilets into an empty paint bucket. His clothes and hat were smeared with dirt.
Residents vowed to intensify their protests
“How can this municipality suffer this disgusting situation? … I throw this poo on the street because I want these useless municipal officials to feel the same pain as living with a bucket of rot for weeks,” he said.
“We will increase our protest if this municipality does not clean our toilets. These officials live a soft life and do not care about the poor,” said resident Landiwe Badela, 53 years old.
“We have asked for more toilets and faucets. But this municipality can’t even clean this toilet.”
He said that on rainy days, excrement is washed in the hut.
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Councilor 33 Mzwandile Sidina said he is trying to get the relevant municipal officials to resolve the issue.
An official of Bahluping Consultants who asked not to be named, said, “We cannot continue our services because we have run out of money to operate. The municipality only made empty promises about our payment. We will only return to work if we get paid.”
The municipality had not responded at the time of publication.
This article originally appeared on Moneyweb and is republished with permission.
Read the original article here.
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