Cape Town - Hundreds of Gugulethu families have been left sinking in faeces after extortionists halted cleaning operations.
The Lotus Park informal settlement residents started disposing of their excrement at a nearby canal.
Nolizwi Nkonjane said: “It has been almost a month since the truck last came into the area. When we asked them why, they said they had decided to stop collecting the buckets because money was demanded from them.
“I guess that contractor is refusing to pay because we had full buckets and after some time we had to hire junkies to carry our waste to the canal as we ran out of options.
“We pay the boys whatever we have, this is bad because the City has already paid people to do that, but they were threatened.”
Nkonjane told the Cape Argus they had been to the councillor, who didn’t know about the threats.
“We assumed that the contractor would go to the councillor and inform the office of what happened to them, but that didn’t happen.
“Our fear is that people are going to be sick from the poo in the canal; you should see children playing there and even animals grazing there.
“Every few minutes you will see someone carrying a bucket and emptying it in the canal.”
The resident said there were other toilets, but people locked them.
“There are two types of toilets here, we have umshengu, the blue portable toilets, and then the buckets.
“The blue toilets are cleaned regularly, we don’t know if they are paying the protection fee or not.
“But the people who use those loos lock them up and we don’t have access to them. There are many community members affected by this, the toilets are communal and each is used by four families.”
Mayco member for Water and Sanitation, councillor Zahid Badroodien, confirmed that services had been disrupted in the area.
“On Monday, April 17, workers from the service provider responsible for Lotus Park informal settlement, which services the container toilets in the area, were threatened by an individual suspected to be working with the extortion gang in the area.
“Later in the day, their truck was forcefully halted and workers were instructed by the individual not to work at Lotus Park again,” Badroodien added.
“Lotus Park has unfortunately not been serviced since April 18 due to the safety risk to staff and extortion fee demands that the service provider has been requested to pay.
“To date, 30 informal settlement sites have been affected by the extortion. The 30 informal settlement sites include both chemical and container toilets (two projects).
“Residents are assured City officials are working to develop contingencies so the service can resume.”