The Windhoek City Council is currently executing a five-year plan to provide adequate ablution and sanitation facilities in the city's informal settlements.

Under the plan, a total of 1,620 pit latrines are set to be completed.

This will help to decrease the ratio of households sharing a single toilet to a maximum of 20 households.

The full implementation cost is estimated to be N$50 million.

The programme is expected to be completed by June 2025.

By June 2022, the City of Windhoek had 1,377 toilets installed in its informal settlements. 

The nbc News team visited some of these facilities in the Havana Informal Settlement, and the team noticed that some of the toilets were damaged and not well maintained.

“These are some of the toilets at Clock 371 in Havana. Residents here keep the toilets locked with a padlock as a way to ensure that they are always clean and kept in good condition."

"The municipality has been coming by to repair them now and then. Recently, the residents put sticks, stones, and even food in the toilets. So I decided to host a meeting with the residents of this block to discuss how we should contribute money, fix them, and buy padlocks to keep them locked. We lock them up for a good reason. If you go to the next block, those toilets are damaged, and now their people also want to use our toilets.”

These toilets haven't been used for over a year now, the residents says this is due its damaged drainage system. 

They say the have reported the issue to the authorities, but it fell on deaf ears. 

City Council spokesperson Lydia Amutenya says concil officials conduct regular inspections on 768 toilets in the informal areas and currently 678 need repairs,

“ Here we really need toilets, this is a toilet that someone made himself because they don't want to use the riverbed because children play in the riverbed, but people don't know how to do the toilets like this one its not strong. Its by luck someone nearly fell in that toilet. LINK. We have written letters to COW and business community until now we are waiting. But we cant wait any longer. “

To this Amutenya said Farm 508 is comprised of two sections, of which Portion A, Ongos Valley Developers have constructed seven toilet blocks with 14 toilets. 

While, Portion B, the CoW's plans are under way for the construction of six blocks with 12 toile