“If I don’t get a toilet by Christmas, I will come and [urinate] and [defecate] on Helen Zille’s doorstep,” Nomzamo Zikhona of Marikana informal settlement in Philippi East said on Wednesday, smacking on a poster reading “Zile [sic] must deliver” to drive home her point.

She was one of fewer than 100 protesters who marched through the streets of the Cape Town CBD in a service delivery protest led by Ses’khona People’s Rights Movement.

“Right now, I have to pee under a tree, in a bucket or behind my shack. The toilets this stupid government gave us are far from my home and there are not enough for all of us to access,” she said.

‘I WANT MY DIGNITY’

“Meanwhile these government people have three bathrooms with those fancy buttons at their houses. I want my dignity. Give me a toilet!”

Ses’khona leader Andile Lili handed over a memorandum to a representative of provincial government in which it demanded, among others, housing for “backyarders” and access to decent ablution facilities.

“We give them a month to report back to us. At the end of November, we will be back,” he warned.

“Our numbers will increase every time we come until there are thousands who will be uncontrollable by SAPS.”

They have also threatened to take the plight of the poor to the courts.

“We have to keep this government accountable. The Western Cape is not an island,” Lili said.