The City of Cape Town is in the process of providing the Social Justice Coalition with details of the Mshengu contract to provide and service chemical toilets in informal settlements in the City of Cape Town.This is according to a statement by the Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille, made on Monday 6 May 2013.

According to de Lille, the details include conditions set out in the contract, copies of the invoices and payments as well as delivery notes for the last twelve months.

De Lille’s statement comes as an acknowledged that it did not verify the servicing of chemical toilets in Khayelitsha by Mshengu Services. “Our records show that the City did not always verify each toilet serviced against the invoice and delivery note.”

Last week the issue was brought to the fore as the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) and Khayelitsha residents highlighted the dismal state of chemical toilets the city provided through its contractor Mshengu Services through a social audit of 256 toilets in four areas in Khayelitsha, which revealed that the city was being short-changed in the R164 million contract it awarded to Mshengu in 2010.

According to de Lille, the contract was awarded in 2010 and will expire in June 2013.

“The City acknowledges that we need to improve the monitoring of service providers for toilets to ensure that residents access the highest level possible of basic services at all times. We have taken remedial action to address this. To this end, we have appointed 266 staff members to improve our efforts to monitor the provision and maintenance of toilets services across the City,” said de Lille, adding that
she would later in May visit different communities, including informal settlements, to engage them about the contents of our Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with different contractors.

“I will use these engagements to further appeal to the community to be our eyes and ears of the City to ensure that all our contractors deliver on their contractual obligations.The SLAs will also be published on the City’s website and further be displayed at all City facilities, including libraries,” concluded de Lille.