Bucket toilets will be eradicated by February 2019, Nelson Mandela Bay municipality infrastructure and engineering head Andile Lungisa has promised.
But he admitted plans could be hindered by the ever-growing problem of land invasions across the city.
“We’re working under pressure to be able to help people in those communities in eradicating buckets and we’ve made promises to the communities to eradicate them.
“In Ward 17, in New Brighton, there were 7,000 bucket toilets but because of 1,200 new buckets due to growing informal settlements, that number has risen,” Lungisa said.
The areas where bucket toilets are still prominent include Ramaphosa informal settlement, Veeplaas, Missionvale, Klipplaat and Bethelsdorp.
At an infrastructure and engineering committee meeting, a report compiled by water and sanitation director Barry Martin highlighted a number of challenges hampering efforts to eradicate the system.
“Each area to be serviced is unique, each with its own challenges,” Martin said.
The challenges listed in the report include an inability to build toilets due to people erecting shacks on private land and shacks built in low-lying areas such as stormwater detention ponds.
Further challenges are the slow pace of housing development and SMMEs and community forums disrupting projects in some areas.
“In some instances, the causes of the stoppages are out of the control of the contractor and involve the actions and decisions by ward councillors in the wards where the work is to be completed,” the report said.
Martin’s report added that relocation and housing delivery programmes had been updated with the bucket eradication programme, which would assist with the eradication.
“The infrastructure and engineering directorate is assisting human settlement relocations. Human settlements is relocating communities to serviced sites where houses will be built and the infrastructure department is constructing single toilets to eradicate buckets,” the report states.