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ActionSA will be supporting a motion to eradicate bucket toilets in the City of Johannesburg that will be tabled by the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in council today, despite the EFF and ANC voting against a similar motion tabled by ActionSA in March. We are putting politics aside in service to the residents of Johannesburg.

We have long maintained that it is unacceptable that residents of Johannesburg continue to make use of the bucket toilet system and that is why we tabled a motion in March for the city to eradicate these toilets. 

It is a pity that at the time, because of political theatrics, the EFF and ANC chose to vote against the motion and instead decided to table their own motion today - five months later. It is a pity that communities such as Kliptown and Eldorado Park have had to wait this long simply because of political grandstanding. 

ActionSA, a party that values social justice, will vote in favour of the motion to ensure that communities receive the human dignity they deserve. 

As a Party grounded in social justice, ActionSA believes that it is time that the City of Johannesburg restores the dignity of these communities by eradicating the use of bucket toilets and providing hygienic sanitation to these communities.

ActionSA will continue to put pressure on the ANC-EFF coalition to ensure that they urgently address the harmful sanitary conditions our residents must live under and to improve sanitation service delivery to those communities.

It is unacceptable that so many years since the dawn of democracy our communities are still subjected to the bucket toilet system even though it is well within the powers of the City to change that. 

Issued by ActionSA