Stench At K'dua Police Station .....

... Stagnant Water & Faeces

THE KOFORIDUA CENTRAL Police Station, a station charged with enforcing law, order and sanity in the 140,000-populated New Juaben Municipality is, in itself, engulfed in so much stench, stagnant water, and faeces that it has lost its moral right to enforce the law, virtually.

What is of immediate concern here is that, should the persisting cholera outbreak in the municipality spread to the congested barracks, the 360 residents comprising police personnel and dependants there, would be at serious risk.

Already, sporadic diarrhoeal attacks have been recorded amongst occupants of the narrow enclosure called Koforidua Police Station, the Chronicle has learnt.

Established in 1945, the station had undergone little or no renovation till its toilet facilities broke down three years ago.

Then, two contractors, A.K. Darkwa of Koforidua and a woman based in Accra, were brought in to reconstruct the bath houses and a water closet toilet in November 1999.

For no apparent reason, both contractors stopped work last year after erecting the structures of the new toilets to some level.

Temporary structures were provided for the densely-populated barracks with the promise that soon the job would be completed.

In the wooden structure, 12-pan latrines were provided for the whole 360 people; before long most of the seats which were made of soft wood got broken, making their use dangerous, especially for children.

For the whole 12 pans, only one man had been assigned to empty them; he decided to do the job only once a week which makes the receptacles overflow for days into the compound.

But the regular removal of the night soil would have made little difference, anyway as the man dumps the stuff in a manhole just behind the latrine, which manhole is already choked and overflowing.

What the police were asked to use as a bathhouse is an abandoned garage which is no bigger than a hall.

This has been partitioned into four narrow cubicles for police men, police women, police wives and their children.

It was learnt that due to the dilapidated nature of the structure, naughty youth can peep at adults when they are washing down.

Water stagnates on the concretized floor or flow outside into gulleys and crevasses to breed mosquitoes that swarm the rooms and offices, it was learnt.

Houseflies and an over-powering stench from the permanent store of faeces in the yard also raid kitchens, living rooms and the offices.

Personnel who cannot use the latrines have no option than to join queues with the civilian population on public toilets, while some also use the frontages of their rooms, kitchens, and pipe stands as their washing base.

The neglect of the Koforidua Central Police Station has been long and pervasive.

Virtually all the kitchens are without gates now as the wooden enclosures have long rotten away.

Overaged electrical cables hanging loosely in the kitchens frequently catch fire and sources say it is only by miracle, that the whole house has, as yet, not been set ablaze.

The narrow cubicles the police and their families reside in have defective windows and doors which permeate rain water into the rooms after rainstorms.

But if damage to personal property can be glossed over, what is more serious are dockets, files and other invaluable documents that rain water splash on during such rainstorms, it was also learnt.

When Mr. E. Owusu-Poku assumed duty as acting IGP, his maiden meeting with officers and men of the service outside Accra was in Koforidua on June 8.

Then Eastern Regional Commander R. K. Safo-Kwateng, took the opportunity to draw the IGP's attention to the stalled toilet and kitchen contracts at the Central Police Station and health implications on the personnel.

Six months on, nothing has been done about the situation.

What observers are saying is that if the police work is for healthy persons, and if a healthy mind lives in a healthy body, then something urgent must be done about the Koforidua Central Police Station.

"Can you muster the necessary courage to assist the public health officials or the environmental protection agencies to clamp down on people polluting the environment or living in filth?"

This is one question the police here say they are being taunted with.