The SA Human Rights Commission and Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille are at loggerheads over the Cape’s toilet saga.
|||Cape Town - The SA Human Rights Commission and mayor Patricia de Lille are at loggerheads over the commission’s investigations into Cape Town’s sanitation issues.
The commission would not discuss these investigations further with the mayor, until findings were available, as this would “adversely impact the independence and impartiality of the SAHRC”, said spokesman Isaac Mangena.
De Lille met SAHRC chairman advocate Lawrence Mushwana last week after the commission stated that it was “deeply concerned about the state of sanitation” in particularly Gugulethu’s informal settlements of Kanna, Barcelona and Europe and that it believed these posed a “significant health risk” to the communities.
The SAHRC said it had received complaints from residents that their toilets had not been cleaned since April.
In a strongly worded letter, De Lille expressed dissastifaction that the SAHRC had, without consulting the city, visited areas where several city officials had been attacked and intimidated while trying to clean toilets.
“This means that the SAHRC missed out on the opportunity to be fully briefed about the effects of the current Sannicare labour dispute on service delivery in the area.”
She also accused Mangena of acting on behalf of the ANC Youth League that has been implicated in service delivery protests and attacks on council officials. “From the comments made, I would have to ask is Mr Mangena acting as a spokesperson of the ANC Youth League, or the Human Rights Commission?”
After two failed attempts to meet, De Lille and Mushwana finally sat down last week to discuss the city’s plans to improve sanitation in informal settlements, including the roll out of portable flush toilets as an additional service. These would be introduced to eradicate the bucket system.
De Lille also took the opportunity to raise concerns about the way the SAHRC investigated complaints.
She gave her commitment to help the SAHRC with its investigation.
anel.lewis@inl.co.za
Cape Argus