While the City of Cape Town announced that it was spending a huge chunk of its budget on improving lives of the poor, chemical toilets in many parts of Khayelitsha will remain for the foreseeable future.
On Thursday Mayor Patricia de Lille and her deputy Ian Neilson reiterated the city's commitment to delivering basic services to the poor, announcing that R10, 8 billion out of their budget of R18 billion focused on direct services spent on the poor.
But despite such efforts, when asked about the use of the bucket system in Khayelitsha's BM section, De Lille said the people there had refused other options saying they preferred the system.
She also said there was no space there to put proper toilets as the area was densely populated and part of the land did not belong to the city but to railfreight agency Transnet.
Neilson denied that it was a bucket system being used but "chemical toilets" which were "very expensive" to run as there were emptied regularly.
Pressed on whether he could install one at his house, he said the ideal situation would be to have flush toilets in every house.
On July 16 the SST community along with the Progressive Youth Movement in Khayelitsha protested against the bucket system saying they wanted "one toilet per household".
The residents, who spilled faeces on Lansdowne Road and barricaded it with burning tyres, also claimed that some residents were falling sick due fumes coming from the chemicals used in the toilets.
They claimed that "hundreds" of toddlers, children and the elderly were being infected with TB and diarrhea due to using the system.
Residents of France informal settlement in Site B were also up in arms in July against the bucket system.
During her address, De Lille said about 1,9 million Capetonians every month benefited from the city's "basket of free basic services" which included free water, electricity, sanitation and refusal removal.
On health Neilson said the city provided free basic health care to "all residents" and of the total health spend of R798 million, R681 was targeted for the poor.
On housing, he said the city had allocated almost its entire budget (99,1%) on pro-poor housing programmes (It allocated R1,449 billion out of its budget of R1,461 billion).
De Lille said she was prepared to meet and discuss service delivery issues with the ANC but not with the ruling party's youth league which has recently organized two protests on service delivery and marched on Premier Helen Zille's office threatening to make the city ungovernable.
She said she was also encouraging ANC councillors in the city to ask critical questions on service delivery.
De Lille conceded that some of the people who were protesting in the townships had genuine concerns and the city was prepared to improve their lot.
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