Municipalities are still battling to provide water and sanitation services, with the Eastern Cape contributing largely to the 2.3-million latrine units (long drops) countrywide. This is according to Statistics SA data that shows Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality had 24876 bucket toilets and 17240 latrines in 2015.Last year, water and sanitation director-general Margaret-Ann Diedricks told parliament the department was committed to eradicating the bucket system from 88127 informal households, and the Stats SA data shows there were more than 80,000 bucket toilet units in all 278 municipalities in 2015. The number reached its peak - 100,000 - in 2013.During her budget vote this year Minister of Water and Sanitation Nomvula Mokonyane said 55217 buckets had been identified in the Free State, North West, Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape, with 1175 eradicated.Click between Bucket System and Latrine System below to see the toilet backlogs for the various municipalities: She admitted it was a moving target since many informal settlements using bucket toilets were on private land.A department programme had seen the number of bucket systems reduced in every province but the Free State from 2014 to 2015.Department spokesman Mlimandlela Ndamase said municipalities were responsible for providing adequate sanitation to communities."Our function is to ensure the buckets are eradicated and to locate the areas where they are," Ndamase said."There are plans to eradicate buckets in formal townships [and] that programme has advanced quite well. After that we must deal with informal settlements and that work is obviously ongoing and challenging.Mthatha's OR Tambo District Municipality had the highest number of latrines last year - 233875. Spokesman Ayongezwa Lungisa said it was due to a sanitation programme."The increase is inspired because we rolled out the sanitation programme which has already been completed in 136 of the 147 wards in the district," Lungisa said."The sanitation project of the municipality is predominantly around the round [latrine] holes that we are doing, with the exception of [in] the towns themselves."We are unable to extend the sanitation programme [to flush toilets] without first addressing the water programme."..