The Department of Water and Sanitation says it has eradicated 78.8% of the bucket system in formal settlements in South Africa.

Seven provinces have “performed excellently with an average 90% eradication”‚ it says.

Those that have achieved total eradication in formal settlements are KwaZulu Natal‚ North West‚ Mpumalanga and Gauteng. The Western Cape has reached 99.8% clearance.

The figures were released by Minister Nomvula Mokonyane in Cape Town during a briefing to the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Water and Sanitation

She said the provinces that achieved less than 80% were Free State and Northern Cape where only 68% and 26% of buckets had been eradicated respectively.

Mokonkonyane said her department had experienced challenges which had led to the inability to achieve set targets in the Free State and Northern Cape Provinces. These ranged from community labour-based disputes to contractors encountering “hard rock” conditions in the Northern Cape. These were some of the factors that had contributed to the delays.

Interventions in place to address the challenges experienced included the deployment of specialised equipment to deal with the hard rock conditions and the introduction of standardised project rates on various aspects of the project at the inception of the programme.

Mokonyane said that for the bucket eradication project to be a complete success‚ collaboration with other departments‚ local authorities and communities was highly essential.

To date‚ a total of 15‚544 bucket systems had been eradicated out of the 57‚329 remaining backlog. Of the remaining units‚ 4‚275 would be completed in December 2015 and 37‚510 would be done by March 2016.