Why have we allowed our rights to peaceful existence be trampled upon in the name of religion?

As if it is not stressful enough to go through the daily hustle of making a living in these difficult times, the natural inclination to rest, relax, and recuperate is frustrated by the unrestrained levels of noise making in our communities.

Ordinarily, noise disturbance is associated with the activities of drinking bars, open-air nightclubs, transport hubs, self-styled information centres, vendors, and shopkeepers.

In the name of religion, however, worship centres, street-side preachers, and operators of powerful loudspeakers which have been illegally mounted in the communities have of late overtaken the secular world in excessive noisemaking.

A typical day in our communities begins with the electronically- enhanced 4 am call to worship by the Muezzin.

The individual preachers and unlicensed broadcasters join in by rudely disrupting the early morning sleep and rest of residents through the use of powerful sound machines.

The rest of the day is taken up by the noisy activities of large numbers of worship centres which are indiscriminately sited in the communities.

This development is deeply unsettling because we have always considered institutions and individuals engaged in religious activities as embodiments of reverence and civility which would not knowingly infringe on the rights of people.

Despite the many appeals and admonitions by authoritative bodies and respectable personalities to abate the levels of noise making, these religious bodies and individual operatives continue to be disdainful of the rights of people in the neighbourhoods to a peaceful existence.

Unmindful of the discomfiture of the public and the debilitating physical and mental health effects of prolonged exposure to excessive noise-making, they would rather strive to defend their warped sense of entitlement to worship and preach any way they choose.

In the wake of the 2012 court-ordered closure of the Spintex branch of the Ebenezer Worship Centre for disturbing the peace of the community, the Christian Council of Ghana urged churches to abide by the noise disturbance strictures of the local authorities.

The Council's attempt to redeem the dented image of the faith apparently did not affect the unreasonable behavior of many congregations for seven years after the Spintex issue, the intransigence of the religious community attracted national attention.

The 2019 High Court found that the Haatso branches of two prominent churches; the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) and the Cross Road Community Church Ministries (CRCCM) were liable for engaging in noise nuisance in a residential area and for violating the rights of residents to the peaceful enjoyment of their properties.

In the same year, the Church of Pentecost, in a bid to reposition the religion, called on its assemblies to respect the Bye-laws of the Local Assemblies on Noise Abatement and to avoid noisy church activities, especially during all-night prayer sessions. Other churches were encouraged to follow suit but three years down the line, worship centres generally and some of the church's own assemblies are not abiding by the admonition.

As matters stand, it is wishful thinking to expect religious institutions and the street- side preachers to voluntarily comply with the laws on noise-making.

As the Ghanaian public, either out of our acknowledged docility or unhealthy respect for things spiritual are unable to confront those who indulge in noisy activities in the name of religion, it is incumbent on the noise control agencies to dutifully discharge their mandates of protecting the people from the ravages of the menace.

They must robustly enforce the legal regime on noisemaking against religious bodies the same way they deal with secular noise makers.

The two groups are indistinguishable in terms of excessive noise-making. Interestingly, a Catholic priest in Kenya is trending for joining the call on authorities to include religious bodies in the ongoing exercise to close down noisy night clubs as some congregations are noisier than the entertainment centres.

Though Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has shown strong leadership in combatting noise nuisance when it undertook to equip the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) with Sound Level Meters (SLMs), it must concretise its commitment by closely monitoring the deployment of the equipment.

The EPA has a lot of clout in controlling noise making and the wish is that it could be as assertive as its Lagos State counterpart which in 2015, ordered the closure of noisy churches and mosques.

The Agency could prevent the siting of potentially noisy facilities like churches by restricting the issuance of Environmental Permits to only areas where residents would not be disturbed.

The yearly renewal of Environmental Permits offers a unique opportunity to disallow the further operation of offending facilities.

The ultimate law enforcement agency, the Police must have by now realised that real action is required to get the religious practitioners to abate their excessive noisemaking.

The latter is so intransigent that observers have been left wondering if mere undertakings given by their representatives during the October 2021 Engagement with the Police would stop them from engaging in noise offending.

The Faith-based organisations are as noisy as ever and until the Police Service abandons it's a soft approach to enforcement of the noise offending sections of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29) and the relevant sections of the Public Health Act, 2012 (Act 851), it will be seen as irrelevant in the fight against noise offending.

Police personnel should also be receptive to noise-related complaints and take advantage of patrolling the communities to routinely warn noisy persons or institutions which engage in noise offending.

With the increased access to SLMs, the Police should be able to readily obtain Noise Assessment Reports from the EPA whenever in order to lay public nuisance charges in accordance with the Public Health Act (2012) Act 851.

The Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) are the best-placed instruments for combatting noise nuisance in the localities.

Backed by the requisite structures and legal authority, they have many options for controlling noise making. For instance, through the issuance of Operational Permits, the Assemblies can keep the potentially noisy structures away from residential areas.

Environmental Health officers who are present in the nooks and crannies of the communities and who themselves experience the effects of the menace on daily basis, have to take their roles seriously enough to deal with the errant religious bodies and individuals.

Confronting the noise menace involves dealing with impunity as well as ignorance. It would be necessary therefore for the MMDAs to collaborate with the EPA to sensitise the leadership of the various religious bodies and independent operators on the nature and legal regime pertaining to the operation and conduct of their activities.

The leadership of the MMDAs and the supervisory Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development have to be committed to the task of reducing noise levels in a society by ensuring that the Public Health officers rigorously enforce the Bye-laws which are in most respects the same for all the Assemblies.

Section 5 (g) of the Accra Metropolitan (AMA) Assembly (Abatement of Noise) Bye-laws, 2017, for instance, restricts the deployment of loud noise-making instruments or gadgets for commercial, religious, or social activities to the hours between 5 am and 10pm and which would guarantee communities at least seven hours of tranquility every day is similar to what obtains in other jurisdictions.

Section 7 (a) of the same Bye-laws requires that religious services, preaching, and praying should not be so loud as to cause disturbance or nuisance to residents and members of the public.

Confining the sound effect of music played in a religious institution to its premises as required by Section 7 (b) and sound-proofing religious institutions so as to keep noise levels within prescribed limits in accordance with Section (7) (c) of AMA Abatement of Noise Bye-laws would be effective measures to keep noise levels down.

Limiting religious services where loudspeakers and microphones would be engaged in the playing of music or preaching of sermons, to the hours between 5am and 10pm as stipulated by Section 7 (d) would lead to tolerable environments.

Religious institutions which conduct all-night services would have to abide by Bye-laws that is similar to Section 7 (e) of the AMA Noise Abatement Bye-laws and ensure that the sound effect of the music and any activity remains within the confines of the building used for the service.

Section 8 empowers the Environmental Health officers to serve Abatement Notices on institutions that determinedly engage in excessive noisemaking.

These institutions are to be prosecuted if they persist in their conduct after the due notification.

It is generally required for street-side preachers to first obtain permits from the MMDAs.

Section 9 of the AMA Noise Abatement Bye-laws, for instance, requires public preachers at the Central Business District to obtain preaching permits from the Environmental Health and Sanitation Department of the Assembly.

These preachers are also required to limit their activities to 8am- 10am in addition to adhering to the permissible noise levels.

Without a doubt, the MMDAs would have to blaze the trail set by proactive MMDAs like the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) whose Public Health officers were reported by the Daily Graphic of July 5, 2022, to have served Abatement Notices on 10 streets preachers and 5 vendors who had breached the Bye-laws by exceeding the Ambient Noise level and operating without a permit.

It is reassuring that the Daily Guide newspaper on the same day, reported the closure of a noisemaking church that did not have an operating permit.

There is no doubt that determined efforts by the Environmental Health Officers, with the backing of the Chief Executives, would effectively check the menace of noisemaking in the name of religion.

Abatement Notices must be regularly issued and followed by prosecutions where recalcitrance is manifest.

Like the larger issues confronting our society, enforcement of existing laws by public officials who are maintained by the state is the panacea to the high levels of indiscipline.

The Executive must not indulge in the Ostrich Effect when the rights of the people to exist in peace are egregiously trampled upon in the name of religion.

If it requires actions like the 2018 Rwandan government shutdown of noisy religious institutions, so be it.