South Africa: Still No Public Toilets At Durban Bus Rank

Commuters and street vendors battle as public toilets at three sites still closed for renovations

Commuters and street vendors in Durban are battling to access public toilets. Toilets at three sites -- the bus rank and taxi ranks in KwaMashu and in the city centre near the city hall -- have been closed for renovations for seven months.

At the KwaMashu taxi rank the City of Ethekwini has supplied four mobile toilets, two for men and two for women, but users say these are not enough. Some have resorted to using buckets between the mobile toilets.

Taxi driver Sebenzile Nxumalo said there were queues during peak hours. "It's a nightmare during peak hours because most people like to use toilets before they travel," he said.

At the bus rank, a tent has been set up with buckets and users have to pay to use them. Bongani Ndaba, who set up the tent, said when he saw that the public toilets had been locked and the building contractor had left the site, he decided to help commuters who had been forced to relieve themselves next to the wall.

"The amount is very little," he said. "Women pay R3 and men pay R2."

City centre street vendor Gugu Ncamu said she had to walk about 500 metres to the nearest toilet, leaving other vendors in charge of her stall. She said vendors had not been informed that the toilets would be renovated.

"I was hoping that by this time of the year the toilets would be open," she said.

Newspaper vendor Nelson Naicker said he used the toilets in a nearby betting shop, pretending to be a customer.

According to EThekwini municipality spokesperson Gugu Sisilana, the renovations at six public toilet sites, at a cost of R11.3-million, were supposed to have been completed by 15 December. About 80% of the budget had been spent and work at three sites had been completed. But at the bus rank, the taxi rank and the city centre sites, the contractor had not finished the work yet.

The work was now due to be finished before the end of January, Sisilana said. In the meantime mobile toilets had been supplied which were cleaned daily.

But the only mobile toilets GroundUp found were at the taxi rank.

Read the original article on GroundUp.