Unenclosed toilets in Rammulotsi, Free State (photograph by Madelene Cronjé) For more than a year, national attention has been focussed on the ongoing saga of the toilets constructed without enclosures Makhaza, Khayelitsha. We have watched as residents in one of the…
Yesterday, Wednesday 20 October, approximately 100 members of the Social Justice Coalition demonstrated outside the western entrance of the Civc Centre Main Hall to demand that the City of Cape Town release an internal report it conducted on the Makhaza toilets incident. The memorandum was received by Acting Executive Mayor, Ald. Ian Neilson. ” Below is an excerpt from the SJC memorandum.
The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) is staging a picket outside the Cape Town Civic Centre on Wednesday 20 October 2010 at 12h00, to hand over a memorandum and legal application to the Mayor. We will demand the release of a report from an internal investigation into the construction of toilets without walls and roofs in Makhaza. The City has refused to release this report. We feel that the release of the report’s findings is very much in the public interest, and that the City is legally obligated to release it.
The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) welcomes and applauds the decision by the Cape Town City Manager, Achmat Ebrahim, to launch an investigation into the building of the unenclosed toilets in Makhaza, Khayelitsha (“Cape council probes decision on open toilets”, 24 August 2010 Cape Times). We hope that this decision will lead to a speedy resolution of this unhappy debacle, and that the findings of the Human Rights Commission will be adhered to.
On Monday 23 August Archbishop of Cape Town the Most Reverend Dr Thabo Makgoba, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and Chairperson of the Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum (WCRFL), will lead a group of senior religious leaders in a ‘prayerful solidarity visit’ to Khayelitsha. The religious leaders from Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Baha’i and African Traditional communities will be escorted by the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) on an assessment of sanitation, including toilet, facilities in RR Section and Makhaza, and will listen to residents affected by inadequate sanitation.