The City of Cape Town is being short-changed on a R140 million contract to supply and look after chemical toilets in Khayelitsha, it was reported on Monday.
The Cape Times reported that an audit by the Social Justice Coalition looked into the contract awarded to Mshengu Services in four sections in Khayelitsha.
Angry residents presented their findings at a meeting with the city and provincial authorities at the weekend.
The audit revealed that of the 346 toilets supplied, only 256 were found and 170 of them were damaged.
None of the toilets had been fixed to the ground as the contract apparently stated and they were not being cleaned as required.
According to the report, there were on average 17 families sharing a toilet, instead of the five families as per the city’s norms and standards.
The city’s utility services director Gisela Kaiser told the meeting they were faced with a growing demand for sanitation.
She said the city had 35,000 toilets to look after and that sometimes things “do fall through the cracks”.
Premier Helen Zille’s spokesman, Zak Mbhele, told the newspaper they commended the audit as an “exercise in active citizenship and civic action to reveal detailed information about problems the communities were experiencing”.
“It is clear that there are expectations on the part of residents which are not being met by the sanitation delivery programme,” he said.
Mbhele said he would write a report on the audit results and present it to Zille to take up with mayor Patricia de Lille.
Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package. 
