INLSA

Photo: Cindy Waxa

The ANC may soon find itself on the receiving end in a reprise of the Khayelitsha “open toilet” saga if the Human Rights Commission finds against an ANC-run Free State municipality in a similar case which its legal committee will consider on Monday.

HRC spokesman Vincent Moaga confirmed on Sunday the committee would consider a complaint about Moqhaka local municipality and might be ready to release the findings by the close of business on Monday.

This comes after the DA laid a complaint with the HRC last September, asking it to investigate the delivery of sanitation services in Rammulotsi informal settlement in Moqhaka, where there were “many examples of open toilets, where residents do not have adequate access to enclosed alternative sanitation”.

Last month the Western Cape High Court found the dignity of residents in Khayelitsha, had been violated by the DA-led City of Cape Town’s failure to enclose 1 316 toilets.

After a complaint brought by the ANC Youth League on behalf of Khayelitsha residents, the case has since been held up during ANC campaigning as evidence of the DA’s neglect of the poor.

The ANC seems to have been caught off-guard by the Free State case, with spokesman Jackson Mthembu reportedly saying the party did not know of the open toilets. “Do you want to tell me it’s the same situation like the one by the DA? It’s even worse if that’s by an ANC municipality.”

Some 1 600 toilets had reportedly been left unenclosed for years.

The DA noted that the HRC took four months to finalise its report on the Khayelitsha toilets, but had yet to release the Free State report, seven months after the complaint. - Political Bureau