adminTHE Bulawayo City Council has said food outlets and leisure spots in the city must provide toilets for use by the public so as to balance the need for ablution services versus the population operating within the central business district (CBD), Sunday News can reveal.
Responding to e-mailed questions from the Sunday News about pressure on the toilet facilities in the city due to increased vendor presence, BCC public relations officer Miss Bongiwe Ngwenya said there was no pressure on facilities so far.
“Observations on the ground do not suggest that there is demand for more public toilets in the Central Business District. Considering that people in the CBD have access to toilets at their workplaces, food and leisure outlets, the present number of toilets will be able to sustain any increase that might be encountered in the coming years of people visiting the CBD,” she said.
Bulawayo has seen an increase in street vending and this creates higher need for toilet facilities as the vendors spend the whole day in the city selling their goods.
Councillor Mlandu Ncube, whose ward one covers the CBD, told Sunday News that the toilets were inadequate for the growing population and that the council needed to construct more toilets to ease the growing problem.
“Toilets are not enough; actually I have tabled a report to council that we increase the numbers so as to cater for the increase of people. We have proposed that we engage service station owners and construct public toilets there for people to use. If we have a toilet for the public at each station it will definitely aid the situation,” he said.
There are 14 public toilets in the CBD according to the city council; seven of the public toilets are pay toilets whereas the other seven are free.
Clr Ncube said the pay toilets were introduced in 2007 during the harsh economic era as a means to keep the council afloat as they were struggling.
Now people who need toilet facilities in the city need to part with some money, a situation that the councilor described as unfair.
“It is not fair that people like vendors pay to use the toilets, they do not make super profits that can allow them to pay to use a toilet throughout the day,” he said.
He said it should be noted that it was an injustice that people pay to use a toilet as one could use the toilet many times a day.
Clr Ncube also revealed that businesspeople who were leasing the toilets were actually surrendering them back.
“There is no business now in these toilets, we have private partners now surrendering them back as they say people are not making use of them as they also do not have any money at all,” he said.
He further said at the designated vending sites in the city, there were toilets that the vendors could use for free. However, he said the initial city design did not consider expansion such that there was a need for extra toilets to be constructed.
The public relations officer for the council added that they could not measure the exact numbers of people that use the public toilets.
“Public toilets are mostly built for the mobile population that enters the CBD. They are unlike toilets built for a fixed population such as schools, homes, factories, etc hence their adequacy is measured by their positioning not the population they serve. In Bulawayo, the public toilets are strategically located throughout the city,” she said.
She said there was no need for the council to construct more toilets.
However, owners of food outlets clearly pointed out that they were not in favour of providing services to the public.
“We only offer toilet facilities to people who will be using the facilities who are our customers, we cannot say anyone passing by gets access to our toilets, it will be a big mess,” said one shop owner who refused to be named.
A survey carried out by the Sunday News revealed that one could not use toilets at restaurants if they did not make a purchase at that particular shop.
Leisure spot owners said they were not in the business of offering people toilet facilities and council must provide more facilities that are accessible to the people at all times.
Vendors who spoke to Sunday News said they wanted free toilets as they felt it was the responsibility of the council to provide them.
“The council must avail more toilets for us vendors and the general public; we do not have money to pay when we are selling our stuff. Like now how do I pump out between R3 and R5 about four times a day to use a toilet, it’s not feasible,” said Martin Saidi who is an airtime vendor.
He also said vendors leave the CBD late at night and the pay toilets which are cleaner would be closed leaving them to urinate behind trees and in alleys.
Stranded residents are said to now resort to urinating in plastic bottles that are then carelessly thrown in the city’s alleys leaving them filthy.
Bulawayo mayor Councillor Martin Moyo is on record saying the council was forced to lease out toilets to individuals due to limited resources as they could not afford to maintain them.
“This was an interim measure we were forced to resort to due to the harsh economic environment but I fully agree that because of the importance of a toilet facility in society, we will need to revisit this decision once the contracts with these individuals or companies expire,” said Clr Moyo.
Bongani Ndlovu