Minister slams MMDAs for giving low priority to sanitation issues
Mr Henry Ford Kamel, Volta Regional Minister has slammed Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) for giving low priority to sanitation issues despite its crucial linkage to development.
He said many of the MMDAs treated matters of sanitation as “peripheral” issues, with low budgets and hardly giving sanitation workers the room to contribute to development planning and implementation.
Mr Kamel was speaking at the opening ceremony of the sixth National Quadrennial Congress of the Ghana Environmental Health Officers’ Association (GEHOA) on Tuesday, in Ho, which is on the theme “Environmental Sanitation: The Responsibility of All.”
The Minister said he would in the coming weeks, work through the Volta Regional Coordinating Council (VRCC) to ensure that MMDAs in the region gave the appropriate attention to sanitation in their development programmes.
Mr Kamel observed that Sanitation Officers were being overly lenient in tackling sanitation offenders, resulting in a generally lax attitude to sanitation issues among the populace.
“Enforce all the laws if you have to send people to court, do just that,” he stated, saying he expected the Judiciary to play an important part in reprimanding such offences.
Mr Kweku Quansah, a Director at the Environmental Health Services Department (EHSD) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development said Ghana was moving too slowly to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on Sanitation.
He said while the target was 54 percent by 2015, the country was presently pegged at a low 14 percent and is the second lowest in the world.
Mr Quansah said it was a pity that Ghana continued to be touted on international platforms for doing so well in governance issues at the time sanitation across the country was so bad.
He recommended that government pumped more resources into sanitation and that people-centred and community-led programmes be undertaken to improve sanitation consciousness.
Mr Quansah also called for a massive build up of appropriate sanitation infrastructure followed by a more a rigid punishment regime.
Mr Francis Abotsi, Volta Regional Environmental Health Officer said people-centred integrated sanitation programmes going on in the five districts of the region had pushed up awareness and compliance considerably.
Mr Edward Mba, GEHOA National President said the four-day congress would go into scientific sessions to brainstorm on sanitation challenges in the country.
Source: GNA