Cape Town - When former ANC councillor Andile Lili came across a Khayelitsha family of five living in a 4m shack using a “smelly” portable toilet, he decided to take up the informal residents’ cry for access to better sanitation.
In an interview on Monday, the suspended ANC member said that in March, when about 108 Sannicare employees were on strike, the workers had invited him to support them. He was unable to attend a meeting due to other commitments.
Lili then visited Barcelona, Kanana and Enkanani, where most of the Sannicare employees had focused their strike.
In Enkanini, Lili said he met a family using a portable toilet which they had just received from the City of Cape Town. He said the family lived in a one-room shack and had to use the toilet in full view of one another.
“The man of the house explained to us that the children complained that when he was using it, it was smelly. The father also told us that he felt the porta-potty took away his dignity because he had to use it in front of his children.
“Those are some of the things that made us decide to join with the communities in fighting these,” said Lili, 38, who lives in a shack in Makhaza, Khayelitsha.
“In many communities you will find that these toilets are filthy. There are maggots because they have not been cleaned for months.”
The dumping of human waste from portable toilets has been a feature of many recent protests in Western Cape informal settlements.
Lili and ANC councillor Loyiso Nkohla led a group that dumped excrement at the provincial legislature’s doorstep on June 3.
They then allegedly dumped faeces at Cape Town International Airport, for which they face up to 30 years for contravening the Civil Aviation Act.
Lili, who spoke to the Cape Times while at the Western Cape High Court fighting his expulsion from the city council on Monday, said: “In the protests people took the faeces and threw it in their own streets.
“But we said, ‘no this is not how it should be done. The people who are responsible for cleaning these toilets are in town’. That’s when we decided to take it to the City of Cape Town and the province.”
Lili could face expulsion from the ANC for his part in the protests. Last week, he and Nkohla were served with letters to appear before the party’s disciplinary committee on August 24.
Lili has already been suspended by the ANC for bringing the party into disrepute.
Even with the fresh charges, he remains defiant. He claimed that some members of the ANC’s provincial executive committee were out to destroy his name.
Lili said he and Nkohla had been advised by residents to step back as they had done their bit to “launch the struggle”.
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