Human Dignity Means Dignified

Facilities

A Paper on Sanitation by the Western Cape

Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified Facilities

Religious Leaders’ Forum, November 2011

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Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified Facilities

What is the Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum?Established in 2007, the Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum (WCRLF) brings together representatives of all the major faith communities in the Province. Under the patronship of Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, representatives of the Jewish, Hindu, Baha’i and African Traditional religious communities are involved in the forum along with all main denominations of Christianity and Islam. In the short time it has been in existence, WCRLF has established a reputation of being a prophetic voice in South African public life. The Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum (WCRLF) has taken the unique legacy of interreligious solidarity forged during the anti-apartheid struggle forward into the post-apartheid era.

Among other achievements, WCRLF provides an effective and essential channel of communication between the faith sector and all levels of government in the Western Cape. People of all faiths share values such as a commitment to truth, justice and human dignity. WCRLF brings people together, who might have different theological views, but who can work together for a freer, fairer and more tolerant South Africa.

Faith is important to the vast majority of people in South Africa. Faith communities played a vital role in the struggle for national liberation, and continue to be major actors in protecting our democracy and helping it to mature. Faith communities are a powerful independent voice, free of government or party political interference, capable of galvanising millions of South Africans into working for the common good. WCRLF helps ensure that our incredible diversity of religious communities harness their power to make this a better country for all.

Notwithstanding the bridgebuilding work of WCRLF and numerous other civil society organizations, it is sobering to note that Cape Town continues to be one of the most divided cities in the world. Clearly, there is still much work to be done to overcome institutionalised racism, class divides and religious separatism in our city. WCRLF contributes to the process of transformation in the City of Cape Town in modest but critical ways.

The theological context of sanitationFor WCRLF, the sanitation issue is not a problem that affects others. It affects people who belong to our own faiths and denominations, our own congregations and in some cases some of the people most actively involved in our work.

Sanitation has long been a cinderella issue; the vast majority of us are embarrassed about discussing bodily functions in public. Unfortunately, this means that this vital issue of social justice had long suffered from a degree of invisibility, and level of focus by all levels of government, that fell far short of its importance. The dispute about the provision of toilets in Khayelitsha’s Makhaza section catapulted the sanitation issue to the first rank of issues commanding public attention – and rightly so. As a result of the increased media focus on sanitation issues, it became apparent that inadequate sanitation was not limited to one community or one city, but was widespread across South Africa.

As people of faith, we are aware that one thing all our faith traditions agree on is the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. Every human being, regardless of wealth, nationality, race or creed, is unique and of unique value. The dignity of each human being implies two rights that each person should be able to exercise, viz.:

• The right to sanitation which respects, at a fundamental level, the right of every person to relieve themselves in dignified surroundings that respect their privacy.

• The right to enjoy a full life which allows each person to realise their potential, without being diminished by preventable ill health, crime or any other factor which current sanitation provisions exacerbate

South Africa’s remarkable constitution enshrines the right of every citizen to adequate sanitation. It recognises also that government resources are finite, and that realising that right will take time, particularly in the South African context where gross inequalities, and the pernicious legacy of officially

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Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified Facilitiessanctioned racism, have left all levels of government with an enormous backlog of inadequate services in poorer communities.

While that might be an explanation for why providing everyone in South Africa with the ideal standard of sanitation might take some time, it is no justification for the lack of progress that has been made since 1994. Sanitation is perhaps the most basic of government services – indeed, it is the reason why municipal government in its modern form developed.

The inequalities in our society are arguably most starkly revealed by the most basic of human functions – the gross differences in the environment in which we go to the toilet. Building a society where all are truly of equal dignity is impossible in a context where so many of our people must perform their basic ablutions in such undignified surroundings.

As such, providing decent sanitation for all is not just a matter of providing proper public services. It is a matter of national reconciliation, of restitution for the systematic indignities inflicted on people of colour in South Africa’s past. It cuts to the very heart of our struggle to lay the ghosts of the past to rest, of building a nation where all are truly reconciled to one another and where mutual respect is a core value of every person and every community.

The scale and political context of the sanitation problemAccurate and universally accepted figures on the scale of the sanitation backlog in South Africa are difficult to come by. Although the 2011 General Household Survey indicated that only 3% of households in the Western Cape either had no access to sanitation or were dependent on the bucket system, the City of Cape Town acknowledges that at least 400,000 people in the mother city alone have no access to basic sanitation. Civil society campaigners claim the true figure is a little higher, at around

500,000. These figures would represent between 7.5% and 9.5% of the population of the province living without sanitation – in the City of Cape Town alone!

However, even that does not adequately describe the scope of the sanitation problem. Toilets and pipes require regular maintenance and monitoring – toilets, by their very nature, have moving parts and pipes and watercourses are prone to blockage, carrying as they do large amounts of soiled material. The risk of blockage and breakdown is higher where many people must share a single toilet and plant is consequently put under more serious strain. This means that the current level of toilet provision is almost always less than that claimed by authorities, especially in informal settlements where the overall level of provision is inadequate in the first place.

Communities suffering chronically inadequate sanitation provision are scattered across the country, but are concentrated in two types of community – firstly in the former so-called ‘homelands’; and secondly in the large informal settlements on the edge of our largest cities. The overwhelmingly majority of people who live with inadequate sanitation are Black African.

The nature of the challenge facing authorities in each of these types of community is different. Major infrastructure projects, especially bulk infrastructure, are to have very long working lifespans. In former so-called ‘homeland’ areas, most types of infrastructure are inadequate, given that for many decades these areas received virtually no investment from central government. Therefore the baseline of service provision tends to very low, and sanitation must compete for resources with other items of core infrastructure which are inadequate, such as roads. The General Household Survey indicates that the provinces with the highest proportions of households without access to sanitation are Limpopo and the Eastern Cape, both of which largely consist of former so-called ‘homelands’.

As has been recognised by the Department for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, municipalities in these areas tend to have much weaker leadership and management capacity than those in other parts of South Africa. Although they do receive grants and support from central government, these municipalities also tend to struggle with very limited local tax-bases. These municipalities often tend to suffer from an inadequate range of contractors with the capacity to carry out work and therefore inadequate competition for tenders.

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Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified FacilitiesIn the major Metros, the nature of the problem is different. Many items of bulk infrastructure are excellent, but were designed for much smaller populations than exist today and were often designed without any intention of serving people who live in informal settlements. Although all the major Metros have seen the delivery of housing, electricity and sanitation services on an epic scale, this is more than matched degree of inadequacy of service provision inherited by these Metros.

These large Metros also face the challenge of a meeting constantly moving target, given the rapid movement from the countryside to the cities. This is a particular problem in the three main drivers of economic growth in South Africa – viz. Cape Town, eThekwini/Durban and the whole Province of Gauteng. Although the provision of improved services in these areas is often impressive in its sheer bulk, it still often struggles to reduce the backlog of need, given the rapid in-migration to these areas.

Any strategy for improving sanitation must take cognisance of the fact that this rapid movement to the big cities is not likely to slow down any time soon. The economy of most rural communities in South Africa remains weak and in former so-called ‘homelands’ economic opportunities are almost non-existent. This rapid migration to the largest cities is hardly unique to South Africa – it is common to all middle-income countries, as is its attendant challenge of providing decent basic services in informal communities.

In that context, it is incumbent on those responsible for service delivery in South Africa to look for best practice in other countries with a similar economic structure and with similar challenges of rapid urbanisation and high levels of economic inequality. South Africa’s recent accession to the BRICS countries may present an opportunity here. Although BRICS is primarily seen as a vehicle for rapidly growing middle-income countries to project their growing economic and political power, the social potential of BRICS has been neglected. Brazil and India, in particular, are noted for their dense network of social movements, and there is much that can be learned from them and applied in our own context. This is a real opportunity for South Africa to use its unique moral authority and ‘soft power’ to drive better standards for the poorest both here at home and globally.

It is regrettable that the sanitation issue seems to have become such a political football. Both of the largest parties in South Africa can point to some real successes, as well as serious failures and enormous remaining challenges, in providing decent sanitation in the municipalities they run. Whatever political differences exist between them, the founding principles and highest standards of both the ANC and the DA must be offended by the sheer squalor that too many South Africans are forced to endure simply to go to the toilet.

While the judgement on Makhaza remains a stinging rebuke to the DA, the equally disgraceful scandal in Moqhaka Municipality in the Free State should be equally salutary to the ANC. On this issue of basic dignity, all South Africans should be on the same side – regardless of political opinion, racial background, social class or religious creed. In the faith community, we are endeavouring to take a lead by bringing our communities together to rise to the challenge that providing adequate sanitation poses. We appeal to all of our political parties, not just the ANC and the DA, to come together with one another and work with civil society and the faith sector to develop a robust national action plan on sanitation which can give hope to the poorest that delivery on sanitation will accelerate and can be achieved in a meaningful timescale. When the provision of this most basic of services becomes a political football, it is those who lack even the basics who lose out.

WCRLF’s Involvement in the Sanitation IssueDuring the past two years the (WCRLF) undertook to make a modest contribution to bridging the divisions that plague Cape Town by highlighting conditions of extreme poverty in the city. We believe that poverty alleviation is not the sole responsibility of economists or public officials, but an integral part of what it means to be an engaged citizen and a conscientious believer.

From a theological perspective, we believe that poverty is not limited to a lack of food or drink. Poverty encompasses the lack of all basic human needs, such as clean water, nutrition, sanitation, health care, education, clothing and shelter.

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Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified FacilitiesTo this end the Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum (WCRLF) has been active in campaigning for improved sanitation conditions for informal settlements in Khayelitsha. In this regard, WCRLF has organized a number of “Walks of Witness” to the poorest of the poor living in Khayelitsha’s informal settlements. During these ‘prayerful solidarity visits’, we smelt the stench of raw sewerage and saw the infamous broken toilets. Residents informed us that the lack of toilet facilities was not only a serious health hazard, but a significant factor in their security and safety concerns. We witnessed the appalling sanitary conditions under which our fellow citizens in Khayelitsha subsist. We were all moved by our ‘walk of witness’ and vowed to challenge faith communities, civil society, the private sector and most of all government to become more committed to the struggle for improving living conditions in informal settlements in the city of Cape Town.

During the May 2011 Municipal Elections sanitation conditions gained national prominence. In the post election period WCRLF has stepped up its campaign for improved sanitation conditions and was a key partner in the Sanitation Summit convened by the Social Justice Coalition on September 15 2011, which has already led to welcome changes in policy by the City of Cape Town. One of the main objectives of the sanitation summit is to develop a joint manifesto endorsed by all organisations present to initiate a program for improved sanitation standards in Cape Town’s informal settlements.

The consequences of inadequate sanitationDeprivation in our poorest communities is a complex, multi-dimensional problem. Material poverty tends to be at its most intense in communities which also suffer from the poorest standards of public services, the weakest physical infrastructure, the highest levels of crime and the worst health outcomes.

In this context poor sanitation exacerbates other problems, and those other problems in turn compound the problems caused by poor sanitation.

Poor health is the most obvious consequence of inadequate sanitation and serves to illustrate the multi-dimensional nature of the problems caused by poor sanitation. Our poorest communities suffer high levels of undernutrition and much higher levels of HIV/AIDS infection than other parts of South Africa. Both of these problems leave people with a weaker immune system, which leaves them more vulnerable to diarrhoea and other diseases caused by poor sanitation. Diarrhoea in turn leaves people weak and dehydrated, especially when their regular diet provides insufficient nutrition in the first place. This in turn leaves them more prone to further illness.

Diarrhoea is the second commonest disease among children in Cape Town and the commonest disease during summer months. Some evidence indicates that diarrhoea is now the leading cause of death for children under 5 in Khayelitsha.

While the health problems caused by poor sanitation are obvious and widely understood, poor sanitation also leaves many residents of informal settlements more vulnerable to crime. Even those residents of informal settlements who have access to shared toilets usually have to walk some hundreds of metres to access them. Many others do not even have this level of provision so must walk some distance to use open ground to relieve themselves.

Few of our informal settlements have any street lighting provision, and most endure epidemic levels of violent crime, particularly after dark. Criminals know that people will be walking the streets late at night and in the early hours of the morning just to relieve themselves, and habitually target places where people pass to reach toilets, and are even more inclined to target unlit, unserviced, waste ground. Muggings and even rapes are frequent. For too many people in informal settlements, deciding when to go to the toilet is literally a life or death decision.

The sheer lack of shared toilets also presents another opportunity for criminals. With many households in informal settlements having no access to the shared toilets provided, having access to one becomes a prized asset. Criminals have been known to remove the locks provided by the municipality and install their own padlocks on toilets, charging residents exorbitant fees for access and ousting people who

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Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified Facilitieshave, in many cases, waited for years to get legal access to a shared toilet through the municipality and residents groups.

The high levels of diarrhoea and other sewage-borne diseases also have a considerable economic impact on people who live in informal settlements. With so many residents of informal settlements in informal or semi-formal employment, sick pay is rarely provided nor is any facility to take time off to look after sick children. High levels of sickness can also impact on people’s ability to move up the ladder into formal employment, which means low and irregular incomes trap people in inadequate and unserviced housing and perpetuate the cycle of poverty.

Moreover, poor sanitation impacts on the most vulnerable people in informal settlements and deprived rural areas, resulting in greater inequality in these, already very poor, communities. The very young, the very old, and the disabled are disproportionately impacted by lack of access to decent sanitation, and are at much greater risk of the health impacts of poor sanitation.

Finally, poor sanitation impacts on South Africa’s capacity to deliver its commitments under the Millennium Development Goals, particularly goals four and five, relating to child mortality and maternal health. This is not only an ill in and of itself, but it undermines South Africa’s moral capital and leadership role in the Global South.

Specific ProblemsIn our discussion with residents of informal settlements, certain problems have been raised with us repeatedly. Many of these problems seem minor but have a disproportionate impact on people’s quality of life. The positive flip side of that is that many of them are cheap to fix and bring disproportionately large benefits when they are fixed.

Quality of fixturesGiven the large number of families sharing most toilets in informal settlements, fixtures are subject to wear and tear much more rapidly than where households have a single toilet. It is notable that where fixtures are of differing quality, the high quality parts survive in excellent condition for years while cheap parts break down quickly under heavy use. In the example pictured, the good quality toilet bowl is in pristine condition, while the cheap cistern has long broken along with some of the cheap parts within it.

This results not only in poor service delivery for residents, but causes two significant problems for the City:

• Firstly, as facilities break down, the City’s assessment of service delivery starts to become optimistic in comparison with the actual level of service delivery. This consequently leaves the City open to accusations of deliberate exaggeration and bad faith.

• Secondly, the money saved by providing poor quality fixtures is actually poor economy. When fixtures deteriorate rapidly, the replacement and repair costs result in the taxpayer ultimately paying more money for the same level of service.

In our view, the quality of fixtures should be subject to national standards as part of a national action plan for sanitation. Even in advance of that, the City of Cape Town should take the opportunity to become a beacon municipality in this area, developing quality standards that can be used to spread best practice around South Africa.

Maintenance and CleanlinessMaintenance and cleanliness of toilets provided also exercise many residents of informal settlements. Few shared toilets in informal settlements have any cleansing provision at all, a situation that would be regarded as an embarrassing scandal if it occurred in public toilets in better-off areas.

Full-time janitorial services are provided as a matter of routine in public toilets in wealthy areas of the City. Residents of informal settlements are asking for much less, and yet the little they ask for is too

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Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified Facilitiesoften dismissed as unaffordable and unrealistic. A single janitorial team could cover a huge swathe of territory over the course of a day, ensuring toilets are clean, functioning, disinfected and secure. Alternatively, a local resident could be paid a small retainer to look after a smaller number of toilets in the immediate vicinity of their home. This is not rocket science.

Better cleanliness and inspection would also help the City with maintenance. Problems would be identified by rapidly by someone acting as an officer of the municipality, who would be aware of the timescales on which problems would be resolved, and would be able to ensure problems are responded to.

This would also save taxpayers money in the long run, as small problems could be identified and repaired in situ, before they lead to further breakdowns and more expensive repairs.

MonitoringJanitorial services would also assist with another thorny issue, that of monitoring. Residents of informal settlements regularly report that the actual provision of toilets is much less than that claimed by authorities, due to breakdowns and vandalism.

Nationally agreed measures on adequate sanitation would allow the public to understand how close the country, and each municipality, is to ensuring that no-one in South Africa endures inadequate sanitation. Municipalities would also have a regularly updated and robust assessment of problem hotspots are. Even in advance of national standards being agreed, municipalities can and should begin this work locally.

Performance of ContractorsAllegations of poor contractor performance are raised repeatedly by community members when discussing the sanitation issue. As well as measuring overall performance, municipalities should develop more robust systems for monitoring contractor performance, and publish these online for public scrutiny. Performance evaluation metrics should not be overly complex, allowing fair assessment of performance while remaining good value for the taxpayer and easy for the public to interpret.

Contracts should set minimum performance standards and contain penalties for failing to meet them, and possibly bonuses for superlative performance.

In the long run, better monitoring and enforcement of municipal contracts saves taxpayers money as well as delivering better services to the poorest.

Community ConsultationWe appreciate that community consultation is a fraught area, and that NIMBYism and conflicting interests within communities are challenges in communities in all income brackets. This is an area where civil society and religious communities can be of enormous assistance to government in ensuring effective and broad-based consultation with the community.

However, it is also important to remember that South Africa is an elective democracy. Ward councillors are, ultimately, the chosen representatives of the people in any given community. They should be given the authority to make meaningful community consultation happen and they should be held to account if they fail to do so.

Six Simple SuggestionsAs noted, we recognise that sanitation is now seen as a significant challenge and a real priority by all levels of government and all stripes of political opinion in South Africa. In the spirit of working in partnership with all levels of government and with civil society, we recommend that the following six simple suggestions be agreed by government at all levels, political parties, civil society and faith communities.

1. Learn from international best practice in other countries undergoing rapid urbanisation and enduring high levels of economic inequality.

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Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified Facilities2. Remove the political poison from the sanitation debate by bringing all the main political

parties at every level of government together with civil society and the faith sector to develop a shared national action plan for sanitation.

3. Keep the sanitation issue high on the media agenda, ensuring that the indignity, health consequences and wasted taxpayer money which are the consequences of poor sanitation remain in the awareness of more fortunate South Africans.

4. Agree national standards for monitoring sanitation provision with robust but simple measures for assessing progress towards the goal of adequate sanitation for all South Africans.

5. Agree national minimum standards for the quality of sanitation infrastructure, not just bulk infrastructure but also basic toilet fixtures and fittings.

6. The City of Cape Town should become a ‘beacon municipality’ in sanitation, developing best practice which can be spread across South Africa. Areas where this seem particularly appropriate are fault reporting, monitoring, and maintenance systems. Cape Town is the ideal place to become a national leader on sanitation, given the scale of the problem in Cape Town and the high media profile sanitation problems in Cape Town have had, as well as the City’s high concentration of media outlets and dense civil society networks. The benefit to the City would be an opportunity to present itself as a national leader on an issue which has a massive impact on the lives of people in the poorest communities.

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Western Cape Religious Leaders’ Forum Human Dignity Means Dignified Facilities2. Remove the political poison from the sanitation debate by bringing all the main political

parties at every level of government together with civil society and the faith sector to develop a shared national action plan for sanitation.

3. Keep the sanitation issue high on the media agenda, ensuring that the indignity, health consequences and wasted taxpayer money which are the consequences of poor sanitation remain in the awareness of more fortunate South Africans.

4. Agree national standards for monitoring sanitation provision with robust but simple measures for assessing progress towards the goal of adequate sanitation for all South Africans.

5. Agree national minimum standards for the quality of sanitation infrastructure, not just bulk infrastructure but also basic toilet fixtures and fittings.

6. The City of Cape Town should become a ‘beacon municipality’ in sanitation, developing best practice which can be spread across South Africa. Areas where this seem particularly appropriate are fault reporting, monitoring, and maintenance systems. Cape Town is the ideal place to become a national leader on sanitation, given the scale of the problem in Cape Town and the high media profile sanitation problems in Cape Town have had, as well as the City’s high concentration of media outlets and dense civil society networks. The benefit to the City would be an opportunity to present itself as a national leader on an issue which has a massive impact on the lives of people in the poorest communities.

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