The ANC has waged an angry campaign against the Democratic Alliance over the open toilets that were erected in the Western Cape. However, the ANC itself erected 1 600 open toilets in parts of the Moqhaka township in the Free State.
Some of these toilets, in Rammulotsi near Viljoenskroon, have been vandalised and are no longer working. Residents have still not enclosed several toilets in Metampelo section while others have put up makeshift covers ranging from plastic sheets to rusty corrugated iron.
Mike Lelaka, technical services manager of Moqhaka municipality says a resolution was taken by the council last year to enclose the toilets – some of which were built in 2003.
He conceded that an audit proved that 1 620 of the toilets have not been enclosed and remained open. Since the audit, 378 toilets have been enclosed and he claimed that another 200 will be sorted out shortly.
He claims that the cost of enclosing the toilets is R8-million but the council only has R4,2-million available.
In another development the DA is furious over apparently dilly-dallying because an investigation into the toilet saga at Makhaza lasted just three months while a separate investigation into open toilets by the ANC has taken seven months and is still not complete.
The DA laid a complaint against the ANC’s open toilets in the Moqhaka township but the report has not yet been completed.
DA spokesman Lindiwe Mazibuko questioned why the Human Rights Commission’s investigation had taken so long. She said that she intends to write to the HRC for clarity on why the two complaints had been resolved over different times.
The HRC has claimed that anyone suggesting that one report had received preferential treatment over another showed that there was a “lack of understanding of the principles of the HRC.”
The ANC has been using the open toilet saga in the Western Cape as an electioneering tool and it now seems that the DA itself will campaign around the ANC’s own open toilet blunder.
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