When Cape Town’s Democratic Alliance government erected uncovered public toilets in 2009 it sparked outrage and a lawsuit. In 2024 a photo of one is being used for disinformation in the run-up to elections.

MARY ALEXANDER • 9 APRIL 2024
Published by Africa Check on 19 April 2024

A photo of an open-air toilet on the verge of a road running through the shacks of an informal settlement is doing the rounds on social media with the claim it’s the work of South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC).*

The toilet has no walls, roof or door. The photo shows a smiling woman looking at it.

A common caption reads: “That’s what we call Public Toilets, Big Up ANC iyasebenza.” In isiXhosa and isiZulu, “iyasebenza” can be translated as “it works” or “it is working”.

South Africa is set to hold national and provincial elections on 29 May 2024. The claim started circulating online in late February.

Opinion polls suggest the vote may be the most pivotal in 30 years, with the ANC forecast to lose the parliamentary majority it has held since 1994.

The party’s main opposition are the Democratic Alliance, the Economic Freedom Fighters and, possibly, the newcomer uMkhonto weSizwe Party, backed by popular former ANC president Jacob Zuma.

The supply of basic services such as sanitation (toilets and sewage systems) – as well as roads, housing, electricity, clean water and rubbish removal – is a hot political issue in South Africa.

Regular power blackouts known as loadshedding have plagued the country for years, and over 100 major protests against poor service delivery have erupted every year since 2009.

The claim can also be seen here, here, here, here, here and here.

But does the photo really show an unenclosed public toilet erected by the ANC?

Open toilets in City of Cape Town informal settlements

A reverse image search reveals that the photo has been online since at least January 2010 – more than 14 years ago.

It appears in a blog post headlined: “Khayelitsha open-air toilet ‘deal’ is ludicrous!” Its caption reads: “Cllr June Frans stands next to one of the open air toilets in Khayelitsha. Their position right next to the road is very clear.”

Khayelitsha is a large township in the Western Cape province. It’s part of the City of Cape Town municipality, which includes Cape Town itself as well as surrounding towns and townships.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has governed the City of Cape Town since 2006.

The photo shows an open public toilet the DA municipal council installed in the Makhaza informal settlement of Khayelitsha in 2009.

It was one of 1,316 public toilets the DA set up in informal settlements that year, on condition that the community would build structures around them. Residents enclosed 1,265 of the toilets, leaving 51 in the open.

In 2010 the ANC took the DA to court, saying the toilets violated residents’ constitutional right to dignity. The Western Cape high court ruled in the ANC’s favour and ordered the DA to enclose the toilets.

During the case the DA claimed that when the ANC controlled the municipality from 2000 to 2005, over 4,000 open public toilets had been installed with the same condition that they be covered by residents.

In 2011 the Social Justice Coalition, which works in townships across the municipality, reported that in Khayelitsha, in some cases, “as many as 500 people are expected to share one chemical toilet”.

Nonetheless, census data shows that the Western Cape has the highest percentage of households with access to a flushing toilet. The province is governed by the DA. South Africa’s eight other provinces are under the ANC.

According to the 2022 census, 93.9% of Western Cape households have a flushing toilet, with Gauteng next at 89.7%. The lowest share is in Limpopo (35.2%) followed by Mpumalanga (54.9%).

* Some claims posted on Facebook and Instagram may have been deleted by users after they were rated via Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program.