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Culture & Society
Harare’s sanitary lanes &
walls turned into toilets
Terence Zimwara
Harare city’s sanitary lanes
between buildings have
become restroom facilities
for pedestrians who cannot
afford the fee charged at paid restrooms
or cannot access the free ones.
You normally see drunken men and
young boys making a turn towards these
lanes once they feel the need to relieve
themselves, while mothers actively
encourage their young children to relieve
themselves at these undesignated toilets.
The result is often a strong stench that
to say it poses a potential for disease
outbreaks.
stop or arrest anyone violating the city
by laws that prohibit the use of sanitary
lanes to relieve themselves. The police
force however, seems to be overwhelmed
at times, while the odd good citizen
would dissuade fellow citizens from
engaging in this unbecoming behaviour.
This however, has disappeared as well.
Harare City has to bore the brunt of this
problem although the same is prevalent
in other cities across the country as well.
The Parade asked some Harare resident
their thoughts concerning this problem
and many blamed the council for not
doing enough to alleviate the situation.
Ronah a hairdresser accused the city
council of being complacent towards the
continued soiling of sanitary lanes, where
street kids and thieves now prowl.
“Almost every place in town has
become a toilet especially these sanitary
lanes and worse it happens throughout
the day,” said Ronah.
In the past people would use these
undesignated toilets at night only to avoid
detection, but now throughout the day
you see grown man relieving themselves
in these lanes.
The few well maintained public toilets
charge a fee for residents to use while
restroom facilities at designated public
unusable to some.
According to Ronah this forces people
to resort to sanitary lanes and other
places to relieve themselves when nature
calls.
The few public restroom facilities that
were built during the colonial era were
meant to be used by only a few people
that is, the white minority.
As many of these were built with the
of the population, their opening up to the
rest of the population suddenly put an
enormous strain on the facilities leading
to their constant malfunction.
The question is when is this going to
end? Who is going to put a stop to this?
City councils bear most responsibilities
in this matter and how they approach
the problem might provide the lead for
everyone to follow.
The Environmental Committee of
the Harare City council in an attempt to
tackle the problem, made a resolution last
year that all building owners had to put
gates on sanitary lanes, yet nothing has
been done judging by the number of these
lanes that still do not have gates.
Suggestions had been made that the
council had to use its resources to install
such gates and then levy building owners
in order for it recoup its costs.
However, just like the issue of potholes
and refuse collection, the city fathers will
simply not do anything but wait, while
forever hoping that the problems will go
away.
For Ronah and many others, the
residents of the city will have to live
with the stench of the sanitary lanes and
hope that no serious disease outbreaks
occur because of it, unless of course they
can pressure city fathers to act, which is
unlikely at this point. TP
Page 56 The Parade - Zimbabwe’s Most Read Lifestyle Magazine
August 2014