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Bucket system on its way out?
11/10/2005 17:13 - (SA)
Cape Town - The Western Cape government is to look at ways of raising the R40m needed to eradicate the bucket toilet system in the province, premier Ebrahim Rasool said on Tuesday.
He was speaking at a media conference following a three-day series of municipal imbizos in the Boland, Overberg and West Coast which cost the taxpayer R1.38m in direct expenses.
The costs included R290 000 for food for people attending the imbizos, and R210 000 for transporting them to the venues.
The imbizos come ahead of nationwide local government elections, for which a date has not yet been set.
Rasool said about 2000 people, most of them in informal settlements, still used the bucket system, which he described as "an indignity".
The first target would be the De Doorns area, where it was aimed to eliminate half of the bucket toilets by Christmas, and the remainder "hopefully" by the end of the financial year.
Ongoing racial polarisation in province
A provincial Cabinet committee would meet on Wednesday to work out how the remaining 1 000 could be dealt with.
"But I'm sure we'll be able to find R40m staggered over two financial years to try and eliminate the bucket system," he said.
Rasool also expressed concern about ongoing racial polarisation in the province, which he said was a legacy of the Western Cape's divided past.
He said where delivery of services at municipal level could not keep up with demand, tensions took on a racial dynamic, with Africans and coloured people accusing each other of getting the lion's share.
Part of the role the province had to play was to hold people to the idea of building a home for all, and to assure them that it would ensure evenhandedness in dealing with their problems.
Concern over growing rate of farm evictions
Racial tensions had emerged most severely at the Boland imbizo, where they included resentment and Zimbabwe-style threats against white farmers.
"You can't sit there and hear that and not intervene," he said.
The district municipality there had asked the province to partner it in a conference on racism in rural areas, in which white farmers, coloured people and Africans could get together and speak to each other.
Rasool said he had come away from the imbizos "a little bit worried" about the growing rate of farm evictions and the resultant pressure on municipalities' housing budgets.
The Waterkloof district municipality should under normal circumstances have a housing backlog of 2 500 to 3 000 housing units, but currently was reporting a shortage of 9 000 units.
This could be directly correlated to the extent to which apple farms in the Grabouw area were in economic difficulties, Rasool said.
- SAPA
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