It’s time to enforce sanitation laws - HMA

The Ho Municipal Assembly has indicated its readiness to enforce sanitation laws and prosecute entities found culpable of flaunting them.

Mr Felix Attah, an Assistant Director at the Assembly, at a sanitation durbar at Sokode Gbogame in the Municipality said the Assembly’s moratorium had long expired, and that no one would be spared when finding guilty.

“We are saying enough is enough…It’s now time to enforce the laws and there will be no looking back. You would have no excuse not to construct a toilet,” he stated, adding that the law courts would be trusted to deliver punitive measures that would deter others.

The Director said it was unthinkable that households and individuals invested significantly in luxurious living places yet ignored such necessities as decent personal sanitary facilities.

“There is no civilization when sanitation is left out”, he said, noting that the Assembly had secured loans to support households with toilets, but many refused to take advantage of the initiative.

Mr Attah said the bad sanitation outlook in the country seemed to indicate that Government’s heavy investment in education was not yielding the expected results.

He said the unwillingness of households to put up toilets put pressure on institutional ones particularly school facilities, and that, in some areas, recalcitrant residents broke the locks of such facilities and desecrated them.

The Director said the Assembly would only build institutional latrines, which were not substitutes for home facilities, and would also provide containers for refuse, and endeavour to address water challenges as well as curb the menace of stray animals.

He advised the youth to take cues from the sanitary practices of the elderly, and help secure a healthy future for themselves and future generations.

The durbar was organised by Edsam Social Network, a Non-Governmental Organisation with support from UNICEF and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Edsam has been supporting the construction of household toilet facilities in the Municipality, and constituted community sanitation teams to help promote proper sanitation.

Mr Mensah Darke, Director of Edsam said all must work to eliminate community dependence on institutional latrines, and added that the NGO would continue to champion urban sanitation.

The community durbar started with a street float by students of the Sokode Gbogame RC, and MA Basic Schools to draw awareness to the desecration of school latrines, and encouraged homes to own toilets.

The pupils and other groups enlivened the Durbar with some drama displays, and a sanitation team was formed for the Gbogame community made up of representatives of various clans.