Johannesburg — The South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry has narrowly missed one of its most important targets, aimed at improving sanitation for the country's poorest people - but plans to make up the remaining ground soon.
In his State of the Nation address in February 2006, President Thabo Mbeki said, "...we must completely eradicate, in the established settlements, the bucket toilets by the end of 2007."
His target has been met in six of the country's nine provinces. In the Free State, North West and Eastern Cape, the deadline for doing so has been extended to the end of March.
Bucket toilets are nothing more than plain buckets used to collect human waste from residences that do not have flushing toilets. The buckets are normally emptied into a purpose-built truck that slowly drives through residential areas on a regular basis.
Government committed itself to the elimination of the bucket system because it is unhygienic and in the words of Water Affairs Minister Lindiwe Hendricks, "It can only be described as demeaning to those who have been required to use this system."
Inadequate methods of human waste disposal have become the focus of attention in recent years following several outbreaks of infectious, water-borne diseases. These outbreaks have been closely linked to the discovery of faecal matter in drinking water systems.
Contaminated water caused an outbreak of diarrhoea in the town of Delmas, 60 kilometres east of the financial centre, Johannesburg, in October. Last month, more than 2,500 people were diagnosed with diarrhoea in the town of Standerton, 170 kilometres to the south-east of Johannesburg.
When Mbeki set the deadline in 2006 for the elimination of the bucket system, there were about 200,000 buckets still in use in households nationwide.
In his 2007 State of the Nation address, the president noted: "We are proud that within one year, we have been able to reduce the backlog in the eradication of the bucket system in established settlements by almost half. We are on course to put an end to this dehumanising system in these areas by the end of this year."
Throughout 2007, government -- especially the water affairs department -- devoted considerable resources towards the elimination of the system. The minister of finance allocated an additional 60 million dollars to this end, while various provincial governments also devoted large amounts to the programme.
In some municipalities, in an effort to accelerate the process, government installed ventilated pit (VIP) toilets to replace the bucket system. But, many people were not happy with the VIP system, and insisted on a water-borne sanitation system instead.
Free State Premier Beatrice Marshoff said that disagreements about the VIP system had caused further delays. "Some of the municipalities that had previously agreed on VIP toilets, at the council they took different resolutions. I suppose it was also because of pressure from the community...they didn't want VIP toilets - they wanted water-borne sewerage."
As government has already dealt with most bucket toilets within deadline, it seems reasonable to expect that it will reach its target by the end of March.
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However, this goal only refers to formal establishments and not to the enormous squatter settlements that have sprung up around all large towns and cities in South Africa - and where millions of people endure poor living conditions, with little or no sanitation infrastructure. Critics might ask whether the bar has been set too low as concerns getting rid of the bucket system in these areas.
Hendricks has acknowledged that more than 15 million people in South Africa still lack access to basic sanitation.
Nonetheless, she says, "As much as buckets are not an acceptable service wherever they exist, we need to prioritise the qualifying buckets."
