Civil society action group Outa says government plans to spend approximately R88 500 to replace a single bucket toilet this year.

How is this cost possible?

Yamkela Ntola, OUTA’s Portfolio Manager for Water and Environment says overspending by the Department of Water and Sanitation on the Bucket Eradication Programme captures the essence of the Department’s financial mismanagement, which will be placed under a microscope in the forthcoming parliamentary inquiry.

“The Bucket Eradication Programme (BEP) has been run under the Department of Water and Sanitation since 2014. Since then, the Department has failed to meet the national target for completely eradicating the buckets, thus perpetuating this indignity,” Ntola explains.

“In 2016, Nomvula Mokonyane, the then Minister of Water and Sanitation, correctly stated that the bucket toilet system is “the most degrading legacy of apartheid”. But under her leadership, there has been no commitment to the eradication of bucket toilets, only a waste of public funds,”Ntola continues.

The group has accused the department of hiding the situation by reporting different numbers in the budget and its annual reports. For instance, the Budget shows that the Department replaced 28 365 buckets in 2015/16 but the Department’s annual reports show that only 1 838 buckets were replaced.

The numbers

The Departments annual reports show the astonishing spending on replacing bucket toilets.

• In 2014/15, the Department spent R281.779 million replacing 20 581 buckets, an average cost of R13 691 per toilet.
• In 2015/16, the Department spent R975.399 million replacing 1 838 toilets, an average cost of R530 685 per toilet.
• In 2016/17, the Department spent R831.390 million replacing 6 978 toilets, an average cost of R119 144 per toilet.

The Department’s report for 2017/18 isn’t available yet, but the Budget shows that in 2017/18, it spent R852.1 million on the target of 13 538 toilets (it’s not clear if this target was met): this is an average of R62 941 per toilet.

Exaggerated spending

According to the organisation the Department’s own costing shows how exaggerated its spending is.

In March 2016, the DWS indicated in a media statement that “costs of these units are in line with the industry guidelines on infrastructure service delivery unit costs of approximately R9 000 for a single pit, R12 000 for a double pit and R15 000 for water-borne sanitation. Expenses relate largely to reticulation, material, civil works, geotechnical expenses and project management fees.”

“The numbers provided by the Department indicate that it not only overspent but failed to meet its target as there are South Africans still using bucket toilets. The fluctuating costs for this programme are inexplicable.

“OUTA calls on the recently instituted inquiry by the Portfolio Committee on Water and Sanitation and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to investigate the costs of this programme and why there are still communities obliged to use bucket toilets,” the organisation concludes.