9 000 Cowdray Park houses use banned blair toilets

THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is working on modalities to ensure that all houses in Cowdray Park are connected to the sewer reticulation system.

The development comes after the Government imposed a nationwide ban on pit latrines and Blair toilets saying they were outdated and do not speak to the modernisation thrust the country is aiming to achieve.

Although Blair toilets and pit latrines are common in rural areas, more than 9 300 out of 15 600 Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle households in Cowdray Park are using Blair toilets.

Residents who spoke to Sunday News said they did not afford the US$500 sewer reticulation system connection fee demanded by the council.

Moreover, the suburb has over the years been faced with a water and sewer reticulation predicament which has seen some sections resorting to the use of Blair toilets to alleviate the crisis.

Responding to questions from Sunday News, BCC corporate communications manager, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said the local authority's policy was clear that Blair toilets were illegal in the city.

"Council inherited the Hlalani Kuhle Housing scheme from the Government in 2012 with all the challenges faced in the area. By then the scheme was underdeveloped with no services.

"Those occupying completed houses had resorted to using pit latrines in the absence of a reticulated sewer system. Council policy is that all stands in the city should be serviced with a reticulated sewer network therefore a number of efforts are aimed at achieving just that with a view to removing the pit latrines and all the associated challenges they pose," said the council spokesperson.

She said the local authority has been carrying out sewer servicing in the area so as to get rid of the Blair toilets.

"Under the African Development Bank-funded Bulawayo Water and Sewerage Services Improvement Project programme, funds were availed for the installation of a 14-kilometre sewer outfall network that services the whole of Hlalani Kuhle housing project. This development has made it possible for the installation of general sewer reticulation for the whole project in totality thereby improving the health standards of the general populace in the project area. The city to date has done sewer reticulation servicing in Segments five, three and parts of Segment six," said Mrs Mpofu.

Commenting on the matter recently, Cowdray Park Councillor, Kidwell Mujuru noted that there was a danger that the suburb would continue relying on Blair toilets if there was no deliberate intervention by council to solve the matter. Clr Mujuru said while the idea of moving with Vision 2030 of a transformed mindset and a transformed infrastructure was noble, few people in his ward were going to be able to go it alone in the movement from Blair toilets to flushable ones.

"We have 15 600 houses under Hlalani Kuhle and 9 300 have Blair toilets and residents have been struggling to put together US$500 required to connect them to the sewer reticulation system. We are likely to have them for sometime if no assistance is given," he said.

Two years ago, Government announced that it had launched a nationwide programme to replace pit latrines and Blair toilets with flushable ones in line with the country's economic Vision 2030 of being an upper middle-class economy. Some rural schools and clinics were among the first to get flushable toilets. National Housing and Social Amenities Minister Daniel Garwe is on record as saying in rural areas, the new flushable toilets were going to be upgraded on the existing infrastructure.

"Government has banned the use of the outdated pit latrines, Blair and open defecation replacing them with a new flushable model which is affordable and suitable for the rural system. Unlike the urban flush system which uses nine litres of water the new system only requires two litres for flushing. The new flush system is also cost effective as it uses existing infrastructure allaying the fears of possible demolitions on the toilets being used," he said.