Is the DA doing better than the ANC in terms of service delivery?

 

The lack of access to proper sanitation and water is a problem across the country. It is important to note the government has made significant strides in assisting people to have access to these basic rights, but have not done enough.

I have been disappointed in the Eastern Cape administration in the corrupt and uncaring way it has been run in the past 17 years. There have been some strides in access to electricity and water, but sanitation is a big issue and basic service delivery is a value. The Eastern Cape is largely rural and therefore in some towns does not have access to pipelines for sewerage. However in towns like Grahamstown, there should be proper sanitation facilities, but the bucket system is still being used in some parts of the location and R 9million was unaccounted for the 2010 budget. This R9million could have been used to build proper toilets.

The DA however also paints a picture that it runs the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape perfectly and this is far from being true. Cape Town was voted the number one City in the Western Cape with the best mayor etc and the best service delivery record. A beautiful picture has been painted of Cape Town as if everything is hunky-dory.

This is far from the truth.

The protesters from the Social Justice Coalition gave the DA-controlled city until May 18 - the day of the local government elections - to produce an implementation plan and budget for basic sanitation in Khayelitsha. A mother of three children, Zukiswa Qezo, 39, from RR section in Khayelitsha, said to the Sowetan she used a toilet next to the N2 highway for 12 years. "Then last year they put a toilet seat with a 10 litre bucket under it outside my place. It is no good. A girl was gang-raped last week when she used her bucket toilet at night. This system is not safe. We want our dignity - one flushing toilet for every family," Qezo told Sowetan.Her husband told the crowd how he was stabbed under the eye by three criminals at the toilet near the highway last year.

Abahlali Basemjondolo said over 500,000 people in Cape Town's townships do not have basic sanitation. They said the city continued to provide sanitation that did not meet basic standards - such as bucket toilets, pit toilets without ventilation and building toilets in one part of an informal settlement only.

Two years ago the ID leader Patricia De Lille said government was to blame for the continued existence of bucket toilets as service delivery was not prioritized, the funny thing is that she has joined the same government she recently critised.

A report by West Cape News said most of the sanitation technologies provided to informal settlements in Cape Town do not meet the standards of basic sanitation. This is either due to the higher household: toilet ratios, the technology itself, the condition and location of the sanitation infrastructure, or the way in which it is serviced.

My take on this is that politicians are all the same, no party is better than the other. The DA might accuse the ANC of not delivering basic services, but Cape Town has also had service delivery protests as seen in other provinces.

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