GHANA: BOLGA LOOKS SET TO WAR AGAINST POOR SANITATION

GHANA: BOLGA LOOKS SET TO WAR AGAINST POOR SANITATION

Edward Adeti's Report, Upper East, Ghana

Mr. Edward Ayagle

The new boss of the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly, Mr. Edward Ayiriba Ayagle, looks set to dare what his predecessors "feared" to do— a crackdown on landlords who put up houses without toilets.

The assembly under successive governments has always avoided hoofing it whenever the media want to engage it on the slippery ground of bending landlords to build toilets as its byelaws demand for the obvious reason that doing so could antagonise the people against the government of the day and further result in the party in power losing some votes. But Mr. Ayagle, in a press briefing in Bolgatanga, says he does not fear what his forebears feared because “sanitation-related diseases are claiming more votes than the necessary enforcement itself.”

Lack of private toilet facilities and failure to enforce the sanitation byelaws in Bolgatanga have continued to encourage thousands of people to defecate openly amid fears that disease outbreaks could grab the municipality by surprise anytime soon. About 9 out of 10 landlords in Bolgatanga who charge as much as an average of 25 Ghana cedis for one-month rent of a single room do not see the need to put up a decent toilet facility for themselves and their tenants, most of whom are worried and fear to welcome long-staying visitors in their homes.

Bolgatanga was adjudged the neatest town in the country in September, 2003, by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development when Mr. Rockson Ayine Bukari was in charge as the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), but residents have continued to compete for space with growing filth about eight years down the lane. In his day, anyone caught in any act of pollution was towed to the sanitation court and slapped with appropriate fines. A 35-member sanitation task force was once in place to ensure that the existing sanitation byelaws were obeyed, gutters cleared up and public toilets kept clean.

Besides, the assembly once built more public toilets and stretched helping hands to landlords who came forward with requests for toilets in their houses; but, however, practically has not succeeded in pursuing its sanitation vision to the point where it should have become difficult today for any house to exist without an accompanying serviceable toilet of its own in the municipality. Rockson Bukari is probably so far the only MCE who came close to doing that.

The new MCE, touching on developmental projects in the municipality, told newsmen during the briefing that his administration since its beginning in May, this year, had seen the completion of six projects including a water closet toilet facility, school blocks and health facilities which had been handed over to the beneficiary agencies and communities. Nyariga and Soe-Yipala each now has a 3-unit classroom block with office, toilet and stores. The Baptist Junior High School in the Zongo community has also been provided with the same facility. Mr. Ayagle expressed the hope that the new development would encourage enrollment and ease the pains of pupils who travel miles to attend school outside their own communities.

Two Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compounds, the MCE said, have been handed over to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) at Katanga and Yarigabisi. He promised that the facilities, which were completed at the costs of Gh¢78,450.00 and Gh¢78, 670.00 respectively, would receive further furnishing from the assembly to make them work effectively enough to reduce maternal mortality and infant morbidity as well as pressure at the Regional Hospital.

“One other project that cannot escape mention is a Gh¢54,193.97 10-seater water closet facility for the Atulbabisi Electoral Area which, as I speak, is in use and I believe strongly that this facility will help improve sanitary conditions in the said area as no person will have a reason to defecate in the open,” the MCE stated, adding “My resolve is to do everything possible to keep the Municipality clean at all times.”

He disclosed that he had ordered the clearing of garbage which had almost swallowed up the Bolgatanga Experimental School and had also held bilateral talks with the regional executives of the Ghana Private Roads and Transport Union (GPRTU) on sanitation particularly at the main lorry station which, according to him, has remained a sanitation reference point for visitors since it is their first and last point of call when entering and leaving the municipality. He promised to work closely with the media and urged the assembly’s Health and Sanitation Unit to intensify its efforts on sustaining clean-up programmes.

The MCE added that the massive support that greeted President Mills’s bid at the Sunyani Congress was a victory forecast ahead of 2012 for the President to make good in his “Better Ghana Agenda” implementation till 2016.