Dora Khumalo has grey hair and a wide smile. The 63-year-old grandmother has been a street trader since she was 13, and runs a clothing stall situated in the massive passenger nexus at the entry to Warwick Triangle on the edge of Durban’s central business district.
Khumalo’s clothing stall is within metres of one of the precious few public toilets in the city, but they aren’t always working. She says that where there are toilets, they are often filthy, fly-infested, broken or blocked. This is despite the efforts of a toilet attendant who works in the area. She says that the attendant is a dedicated worker who tries hard in the face of the municipality’s failing support and the high demand for few toilets.
Ndlovu has been working with traders and commuters in Warwick Triangle since 1986, first as a city official and for the past decade with AeT, which he co-founded with architect and fellow council manager Richard Dobson.The NGO recorded 23 functioning toilets in Warwick and the central business district, plus three portable toilets, two pissoirs or public urinals, and six urination troughs.
Dobson says that a long history of deferred maintenance and ad hoc repairs have created tenuous systems that could be fixed, but in the meantime the city seemed averse to innovation. Khumalo says suspended Durban mayor Zandile Gumede would never use a Warwick Triangle toilet: “Definitely not. We asked the city business support unit if we could take care of the toilets, but they said no.”This is an ironic comment, considering that City Press reported earlier this year that charges the now suspended mayor faces include how she and others allegedly orchestrated a tender scam that saw the municipality pay R25 million to hire and clean chemical toilets for six months.
Ndlovu says Brian’s toilets aren’t supplied with paper, but there’s never a shortage. Instead, there’s a brisk trade in toilet paper. Likewise, disinfectant is also in high demand in Warwick.Muthi seller Simon Gumede spends R50 a month on disinfectant cleanser Jeyes Fluid. His stall is beneath the Johannes Nkosi flyover into town, just metres from the road, where he sells jackal and baboon hides and an array of potions.
kuyanuka
How much better would they be if there wasn’t a capitalist economy with billionaires like Patrice Motsepe who have acquired (by whatever means) unjust ownership of vital resources, and exploited and deprived workers to extract vast wealth for themselves?
he will be shocked...and then continue dreaming about the smart city...
But hey. We must dream of bullet trains and high tech cities. Not so CyrilRamaphosa ? Maybe the people in high tech cities will not need toilets? Who knows?
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