“Our buckets are not collected and they are full of worms. Our health is at risk as the toilets are right in front of our shack doors and we have children”
SANTA Centre residents emptied buckets full of their faeces into a manhole on the weekend, as they said that their bucket toilets have not been collected by the Sol Plaatje Municipality for weeks.
The buckets are supposed to be collected every Monday.
The angry residents said that they were told that there was no money for the municipal trucks to collect the buckets.
According to the residents, they emptied the overflowing buckets into the manhole as a form of protest; saying that they are sick and tired of meetings with municipal officials where promises are made but not kept.
“Our buckets are not collected and they are full of worms. Our health is at risk as the toilets are right in front of our shack doors and we have children,” said one resident.
The residents also had other complaints and demanded answers.
They claimed that their ward councillor had promised them that electricity would be installed by November last year and it hasn’t been.
They demanded answers as to why the area has not yet been evaluated but RDP houses are already being built on it.
They said further that they had been promised that the old houses that used to be the TB hospital premises would be demolished and rebuilt, but they are still waiting.
“We are sick and tired of empty promises. We have been waiting for 26 years now. We have been lied to since the time when Mangaliso Matika was the Speaker of Sol Plaatje Municipality. And even years after he came into power we are not even given a second glance,” said an angry resident.
Sol Plaatje Municipality spokesperson Sello Matsie said that the local authority has noted the residents’ concerns and will engage them shortly.
