We can hold our heads high for our clairvoyance and for the initiatives we took. You will remember that we encouraged people to use cheap material available to them to build toilets and we developed programmes to teach them how to do it. You will also remember that we backed these programmes of toilet building in our rural areas with some small fines and penalties against those who did not co-operate in the building of toilets or would not use them. At the time we were criticised, but indeed on this occasion the position taken by our traditional authorities is clearly vindicated. The Minister of Health is with us today to distribute toilets as one of the ways in which to prevent further cases of cholera epidemics.
Cholera is an epidemic infectious disease which kills people.
One of its main sources is the contact between human faeces and water drunk by people. Cholera is a small bacteria, which like all bacteria cannot be detected by the human eye, which grows and develops in human faeces and contaminates the water which people may drink. Therefore, for many years our traditional authority did what it could to compel people to utilise basic sanitation practices which would avoid the contamination of drinking water with human and other faeces, such as the use of toilets. This is something very important that we need to continue to harp on. We must also develop more educational programmes to teach our people the basic facts about hygiene and sanitation.