Majodina pledges to finalise govt's delayed bucket eradication project in NC & FS
Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina gave a status update of the much-criticised programme on Monday, while outlining her department’s priorities after her first month in office.
Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina during a media briefing on 5 August 2024. Picture: @DWS_RSA/X
CAPE TOWN - Water and Sanitation Minister Pemmy Majodina has pledged to finalise government’s delayed bucket eradication project in the Northern Cape and Free State.
She estimated that around 10,000 buckets still had to be removed in the Free State and more than 500 still to go in the Northern Cape.
Majodina gave a status update of the much-criticised programme on Monday, while outlining her department’s priorities after her first month in office.
She said her department would soon issue new norms and standards for sanitation in line with the national sanitation framework, recently approved by Cabinet.
With 26 out of 33 projects in the Free State now complete, Minister Majodina said that 22,000 buckets had subsequently been removed.
In the Northern Cape, Majodina said that 29 out of 30 projects were now complete, amounting to the removal of 12,000 buckets.
But she warns there was still a way to go to completely rid the country of the bucket toilets.
"The programme will not result in the eradication of the undignified bucket system altogether from the South African landscape. This is because the programme only focuses on eradicating buckets in certain towns and provinces where they were identified in 2012."
In the intervening 12 years, Majodina said that municipalities had continued to introduce the bucket system as a means of sanitation.
She said her department would try to stop the introduction of this system, because there’s no new programme to remove bucket toilets introduced after 2012.