Tokyo focuses on toilets

Report from task team led by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela will inform Sexwale's budget speech

HUMAN Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale will use a report compiled by the task team set to probe the open toilets saga to inform his budget speech in May.

Sexwale's spokesman, Xolani Xundu, yesterday said the minister was given the report in January.

The report was compiled by a task team led by ANC veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela after Sexwale and the ruling party were exposed to the "inhuman state of sanitation facilities poor communities are faced with".

"The report is with the minister. It was handed to him in January and he is still going through it. He has not decided when he will make it public. He will also use the report to guide him in his budget speech," Xundu said.

The task team visited several provinces and Madikizela-Mandela expressed her shock at the "grave shortcomings in implementing the sanitation programme".

Madikizela-Mandela promised that the task team would not "spare anyone implicated in irregularities".

The Young Communist League (YCL) lambasted the minister when the task team visited Free State.

The league accused Sexwale of deploying Madikizela-Mandela to campaign on his behalf ahead of the ANC elective conference in Mangaung in December.

The league, at the time, said the probe was a wasteful expenditure which smacked of "populist tendency".

YCL spokeswoman Moeng Frankabena said investigations into the saga had been conducted before and information was readily available for Sexwale to act on.

She said the national oversight committee and the provincial human settlements departments had also conducted their own investigations.

"Instead of appointing another team to investigate the same problem, the minister is at liberty to request both committees to provide him with a report," she said.

- Sowetan