BY AMOS BATISAYI GOKWE Residents Association (Gura) has urged council to construct public ablution facilities to avert a health disaster due to the town’s growing population.
The town, in the middle of the cotton-growing region, has only one public toilet despite experiencing rapid growth over the years.
“We are urging the Gokwe Town Council to construct more public toilets that meet the current population,” Gura chairperson Nephous Mhangami said.
“The current situation is not sustainable and unacceptable because a lot of people cannot afford to use the pay toilet. We now have more than 32 000 residents, hence the need to construct more public toilets,” he said.
A vendor, Arron Dhewa, said the issue of lack of ablution facilities should be urgently addressed because the risk of outbreaks of water borne diseases in the town was very high.
“The town council is seeking to achieve town status and the local authority should construct more public toilets. People are using bushes as toilets, which is risky and can cause outbreaks of diseases,” Dhewa said.
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Gokwe Town Council destroyed the only public toilet that was at the bus terminus because it was dilapidated and was no longer safe to use.
Council has been operating without a free public toilet for close to two years now.
Efforts to get a comment from council officials were fruitless as they were not answering their phones.
The Gokwe Town Council 2022 budget allocated money for the construction of public toilets.
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