Cofimvaba: a town without public toilets

Shop owners built these dividing walls for men to urinate. Photo: Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik

At month end when social grants are paid, Cofimvaba town is bustling with people from the surrounding villages of the Intsika Yethu Municipality in the Eastern Cape, who come to shop and collect their grants. But, as with every other day in this town, if they need the toilet, they will either have to “minca” (Xhosa for “hold it in”) or relieve themselves in an open field.

Right now the town has no working public toilets. There were just two, located at the Boxer taxi rank, for which users had to fork out R3 and flush them with buckets themselves. But since last week, there is no water for these either, due to a power failure at Tsojana Treatment Plant.

And yet, the municipality has spent millions on public toilets. In 2013, it built a facility that included 12 toilets, six stalls and two showers. By 2017, all the toilets were vandalised.

“The facility became a white elephant,” says community leader Zukile Mbotoloshi. He said the project failed because the municipality had not consulted the relevant people, including Chris Hani District Municipality, responsible for water and sanitation, which never connected them.

Mbotoloshi said seeing elderly women relieving themselves in open fields is a regular sight.

GroundUp also saw women relieving themselves behind shipping-container shops.

Another toilet construction project began in 2017 and was completed around 2022. Resident Asonele Ndima says they paid R4 to use the toilets, but didn’t mind because the facility was clean and “very beautiful inside”. Ndima says, they thought “the days of us women using open fields to relieve ourselves were finally over”.

But soon after, the toilets closed for weeks, sometimes months, due to water outages.

“Last year they completely closed,” says Ndima.

Municipal spokesperson Zuko Tshangana blamed vandalism.

Alternative public toilets, at the town hall and soccer stadium, are also not functioning.

That left just the two toilets at Boxer taxi rank. Shop owners also built screening walls for men to urinate behind. They pour chemicals, but the smell is unbearable.

DA PR councillor Phumelele Magazi said, “The issue is that the municipality builds these facilities but does not safeguard them.”

“A lot of money was spent, and the municipality is now in the process of adding more money to something they failed to maintain,” he said.

Tshangana said both toilet facilities are being renovated and will be guarded.

Support independent journalism
Donate using Payfast