Brighton Chiseva
MASVINGO registry office hygiene crisis where more than 100 people were sharing a single toilet was recently addressed after TellZim News published a story highlighting the issue.
The complex houses the provincial registry offices, government departments of Labor, Women Affairs, Provincial war veterans’ offices, Education, Justice and Legal Affairs, Attorney General and the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services offices and all were sharing the same toilet cubicle.
Workers mainly civil servants who use the government complex were forced to endure inhuman conditions where men and women share same toilet cubicle.
They complained that the Public Works department which is responsible for fixing government infrastructure was notified but failed to act in time to address the problem.
However, following an article by this publication, they went on to fix the non functional toilets as well as fixing other minor challenges at the complex.
“They came and fixed the problem and went on to fix other minor problems that we were complaining but were not urgent.
“We are happy that you exposed our problem, sanity has been restored, we were being forced to hold waste for a long time and women were most vulnerable, we are just thankful that there was no incident of sexual assault ,” said the source
People had devised a plan where men were using the urinary side while women uses the toilet seat. However, it was a challenge when men wanted to use the toilet seat for they were forced to use it and risk women walking in on them and that caused a lot of confusion.
The Public Service department was accused of lacking serious when it comes to fixing problem at government complexes as they should be doing.
Government departments have been accused again of not having proper and functional facilities as well as topping council’s debtor list.
