ANGRY residents of Makhaza at Khayelitsha, outside Cape Town, have called for proper houses with toilets inside instead of "shack toilets".

The residents said yesterday they had destroyed the zinc walled toilets built by the DA provincial administration because it was "a sign of discrimination and continuation of apartheid".

"They (local government) would not have built those kinds of toilets in Mitchells Plain where coloured people live. They look down upon us. They want to humiliate us," said Vusimzi Qobosha, who has lived in the area for the past two years.

Doris Tutu, a mother of three, said: "Zinc toilets are not strong, they get rusty and won't last long. We are now in winter, they will start leaking and flooding.

"If it's windy they can be blown away by the wind. Imagine you are sitting there and the wind comes and the whole thing flies away.

"The toilets are an insult to us. It's unbelievable that they would do this to us," she said.

Tutu said building such toilets was a sign that the government would take long to build houses it had promised them.

Tutu, who shares her shack with her children, said there was no privacy and "a proper house is more important than a shack toilet".

"We have been living in shacks for a long time, now they want to bring more shacks as toilets."

Nophumzile Magugwana, a mother of four, said: "We want toilets with concrete walls which can last a long time until we get houses with toilets inside."

Andiswa Nkohla, who has lived in the area for three years, complained that the "toilets always get blocked and are not safe to use at night. We want good houses. We are tired of this situation. It's hard to live here. The government does not care for the future of our children," she said.

Said Nkululeko Matshoni: "Women and children get raped in these toilets. If they build more of these, we will keep destroying them."