AMA summons 4 public toilet operators to court for operating under unhygienic conditions

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has summoned four public toilet operators in Ablekuma South Sub-Metropolitan District to court for operating under unhygienic conditions.

The operators were summoned following an enforcement exercise that began on Wednesday to sanitise public places of convenience in the city and maintain strict hygienic conditions.

Speaking to the media after an inspection of the facilities, Head of the Public Health Department of AMA, Florence Kuukyi, observed that most slaps on all chambers to the septic tanks of the facilities visited were broken and this allows air in and out of the tank permitting microorganism to digest in the tank which makes it full early.

She pointed out that the septic tanks of the facilities were not airtight, which enables the breeding of cockroaches and mosquitoes, leading to disease transmission.

She noted that after a swab test to check the microbial contamination of the facilities to determine their hygienic conditions it was also discovered that most of them were not in good shape.

She said out of the five public toilets visited four had exposed anal cleansing materials to flies describing it as unacceptable.

She cautioned that the AMA had intensified its campaign to improve the standard of public places of convenience in the metropolis through its bye-laws and admonished operators to comply accordingly.

She stressed that the Assembly was going to insist on acceptable sanitation standards in the public places of convenience in the metropolis adding that every public toilet facility must have a handwashing basin, clean seats, hygienic floors and sanitation papers instead of a newspaper.

“The floor must be a floor that can be cleaned regularly; the seats should be always clean, hand washing basin that should be free from contamination, burning of the tissue paper after use was also not acceptable, " she said.

Asiama Boahene, Quality Health Safety and Environment Manager at Witties Hygiene said the purpose of the swab test was to measure the contamination levels at the various facilities adding that the results were about 300 which was not the best.

"During the test, we examine the toilet seats, door handles... These are hotspots we need to pay more attention to," he said.