Jobless people speak on the right to sanitation and basic services

As the Unemployed People’s Movement (UPM), we are pleased to make this submission to these public hearings. We are not able to send delegates to physically attend these hearings as our financial resources do not allow for this. We thank the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) for this opportunity. We have also keenly followed your work on investigating the insulting and undignifying open toilets in Macassar and Moqhaka. We fully endorse your findings, which condemn these open toilets as a human rights violation and an affront to the dignity of poor people.

We make this submission in order to tell you about the plight of thousands of poor people in Grahamstown townships and informal settlements. We also write this submission in order to invite you and other SAHRC officials to institute a formal and legal enquiry on the following:

1. The state of access to basic water and sanitation services in Grahamstown;

2. Progress in eradicating the bucket system in Grahamstown;

3. Documentation of the continued use of the bucket and pit-latrine systems in Grahamstown;

4. Documentation of, and action against the Makana Local Municipality’s failure to ensure universal access to running water to all households;

5. Unfair water cut-offs to communal taps in the poorest areas of Grahamstown;

6. The violation of the right of the poor to freely organise and undertake disciplined social protest against the local municipality; and

7. Illegal, repressive and anti-democratic actions by the local South African Police Services (SAPS) against UPM activists.

In Grahamstown there is, after years and years of inaction, sudden commitment from the municipality to eradicate the bucket system. This sudden commitment is a response to popular struggles by the UPM and, especially, an expose on the bucket system in Grahamstown on the television programme ‘Cutting Edge’. Once the television programme was screened we began to see a change in attitude. However we need to make it clear that the television programme was only screened because there had been a popular struggle against the bucket system in Grahamstown.

Right now the municipality is working to replace the bucket system in KwaNdancama in Grahamstown. However we must note that in many parts of nearby areas, like Qaqawuli in Port Elizabeth, the bucket system is still in place and there are no moves to replace it with proper sanitation. We have spoken to residents of Qaqawuli and they have been repressed in their protests to highlight the issue of bucket system. We have been repressed too, shot with rubber bullets and detained. How are we expected to fight for the restoration of our dignity if both the government and the police repress us? We are quite certain that there are many people and areas in the Eastern Cape that continue to use bucket system, such that they know the price of organizing against the bucket system.

And in many parts of Grahamstown people are still using the pit-latrine system. This is the system in which people dig their own pits and once they are full they have to dig new ones somewhere else. This system is also undignified, unsafe and it is unsustainable as you can only dig a certain number of pits in one yard. The pit-latrine system remains in use in Extension 6, in Phaphamani, eThembeni, eHlanani, Zolani and eTuthwini. In Eziphunzana part of East London people cannot access toilets after 18:00. The public toilets are locked as per instruction of the municipality. People must cross free way to go and relieve themselves at the nearby bushes. One man died while crossing the freeway, he was hit by a car. He left behind a wife and children and he was a sole bread winner.

And there are also serious problems with taps. In eThembeni a couple died in a fire while the water was off – something that often happens. In Joza, two couples died, they could not be saved from fire because there was no water in taps. A student from Mrhwetyana High School died due to contaminated water. In my area where I stay in E street, Fingo Village we did not have water for the whole past weekend. No notice that we will not have water, absolutely nothing. In other areas like Joza Street people can only access water in the early hours of the morning, they must wake up at 02:00 otherwise in the morning, like 07:00 there are frequent problems in accessing water.

When we organised a speak-out campaign against water crisis and scarcity, both the ANC and ANCYL disrupted our meeting, calling us names.

All of these problems are made worse for people that continue to live in shacks or in RDP houses that are falling apart.

But this commission will be very aware of the material conditions that people are forced to live with. What we would like to stress to the SAHRC is that there has only been progress in Grahamstown after popular activism in the face of suppression.

However the right to organise is under serious threat in Grahamstown. I repeat when the UPM organised a meeting on the water crisis we are labelled as agents of the DA and the AWB. We were publically subject to death threats and our meeting was broken by the ANC. Later our leaders were arrested, beaten and given unlawful bail conditions that banned them from political activity.

Much of the discussion around services assumes that the problems are technical. But they problems are in fact political. Municipalities have become highly politicised. They are places for people to get rich and for the ruling party to cement its power. The only way to challenge this is through popular organisation but popular organisation faces serious repression.

There can be no technocratic solution to political problems – there can only be political solutions to political problems. If the Human Rights Commission really wants to get to the bottom of the service delivery crisis it must take a clear stand in support of the right of the poor to organise. I repeat, if the Human Rights Commission really wants to get to the bottom of the service delivery crisis it must take a clear stand in support of the right of the poor to organizs. Our movement, like the Landless People’s Movement and Abahlali baseMjondolo, has faced serious repression while trying to raise issues around services. We need to be able to organise freely and safely

We also extend invitation to Human Rights Commission to visit our places in order to initiate the formal enquiry that we have asked for above.

In defence of human rights and for peoples’ power!

Ayanda Kota, UPM Chairperson. 0786256462

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