Attitudinal change is key to sanitation problems - Outgoing Accra Mayor

Accra, Jan 17, GNA - Mr. Solomon Offei Darko, Outgoing Mayor of Accra on Saturday said until the attitudes of people change and was prepared to live a disciplined lifestyle; every effort to solve the sanitation problem in the city would not materialise. "I have always said that the problem of sanitation in the city is first and foremost attitudinal and if we don't change this attitude of indiscriminate littering around even when litter bins have been provided, we would not achieve any result," he said.

The AMA Chief Executive said these when he commissioned a 150 million-cedi toilet and bathhouse facilities for the people of La. The La 67 Boys and Girls Classmates Association built the facilities through the instrumentality of Mr. Novalis Gans-Lartey, Assemblyman of La Mantiase Electoral Area, with the collaboration of the Labone Rotary Club.

Mr. Darko said it has been proven and evidence had shown that the cleanest cities in the world came about as a result of people changing their attitude towards their environment, having known the health hazards that poor sanitation could bring to them. "This is the answer to our sanitation problem here and until we all recognize and rise to join the campaign, every effort and resources that will be pumped in will go to the drain," he reiterated. He said there was the need to also to appreciate the fact that the Accra Metro Assembly could not provide all the required sanitation needs of the city, hence every efforts must be made by communities to help in the campaign.

He lauded the ingenuity of the Association and appealed to community members to take good care of the facilities so that their lifespan were prolonged for the benefit of all, saying, "you should endeavour to keep the toilet and surrounding neat at all time." Mr. Darko called for a management committee to comprise traditional authorities, assemblymen, and members of the unit committee as well as the sanitation unit of the sub- metro to take care of its running and maintenance. He called on the Association to include in their activities strategies or programmes that would clean up their environment in a sustained basis, adding, "Waste should be disposed of at the appropriate places and we should desist from throwing rubbish about indiscriminately."

Chairing the ceremony, Mr. Amarkai Amartefio, a patron of the Association also mentioned the lack of enforcement of sanitation laws as one of the major obstacles that had made the fight against sanitation a Herculean one. "We do not enforce our laws, that is the main reason why we continue to see people flouting the laws and going scot-free without being punished to deter others," he said. Mr. Amartefio commended the Association and said the way and manner they would take care of the facilities would determine the support that they would get from donors in the future.

Mr. Gans-Lartey appealed to the residents in the area to regard the facility as their own and that, when properly taken care of, it would be for their own good. He said the absent of such facilities, especially the toilet, was causing a lot of nuisance in the Kojo Sardine, Norkortsoshishi and Abormi areas where people now use gutters as places of convenience, most probably because houses have been built without such facilities. Mr. Gans-Lartey said it was about time that the people of La dropped the unhealthy saying that, "Nothing good will be achieved in La" and rather resolved that with one sense of goodwill and common purpose, nothing will be impossible for them.