Landlords without toilet facilities in their homes to be prosecuted

Homeowners in the Kumasi metropolis without toilet facilities in their homes will soon face prosecution, Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Osei Assibey Antwi, has warned.

Figures from the sanitation department of KMA shows only 39 per cent of households in the metropolis have toilet facilities.

According to the assembly, 60 per cent of homes without toilet facilities rely on public toilets within the city; a situation the KMA is seeking to reverse in a new drive aimed at ensuring every household builds a toilet.

Mr. Assibey Antwi noted that per the city’s by-laws, every home ought to have a decent toilet facility, which he said is going to be enforced after enough education and awareness have been created.

He said after the awareness creation, the assembly will be tough on punishing homeowners who refuse to build toilet facilities in their homes, which he said would include prosecutions.

Speaking at a compound sanitation sensitisation durbar at Ayigya Zongo and Moshie Zongo in the Kumasi metropolis, Mr Assibey Antwi said the KMA with support from the Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) and some financial institutions, is giving toilet loans to landlords.

Under the project, about 500 households at Ayigya Zongo and Moshie Zongo would be assisted with loans to build toilets and repay in installment after construction is completed.

The KMA has in line with that, trained some artisans who will be mandated to built the toilet facilities for the beneficiaries “This is part of measures put in place by the assembly to solve open defection problem and over reliance on public toilet facilities thereby reducing cholera outbreak in the metropolis,” Mr Assibey Antwi explained.