A sanitation dialogue by Graphic Communications Group, in collaboration with Zoomlion Ghana, has stressed the importance of coordination of sanitation interventions, such as mass campaigns and exercises, to ensure a clean environment.
The event, patronised by several stakeholders in Koforidua, highlighted the imperative need for coordinating and sustaining individual efforts in keeping personal hygiene and ensuring that local communities are kept clean at all times.
Opening the dialogue on the theme: “Keeping Ghana clean,” Daasebre Professor Oti Boateng, Omanhene of New Juaben Traditional Area, said the success or failure of any health education programme was largely determined by the level of people’s acceptance and use of services.
He said the involvement of communities guaranteed long-term solutions to disease control and universal access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
“An inclusive and sustained social intervention offers the best strategy to move Ghana rapidly beyond the stagnant and abysmal 15 per cent improved sanitation coverage to a more desirable and acceptable threshold.”
The Graphic Communications Group Limited launched the National Sanitation Awareness Campaign in April 2021, calling for strict enforcement of sanitation bye-laws and naming and shaming sanitation offenders.
Since then, it has taken the campaign to Ashanti and Volta regions and lately in the Eastern Regional capital Koforidua, to dialogue with stakeholders on sustained ways of solving Ghana’s sanitation challenge.
Daasebre Boateng said: “The sufficiency criterion of getting and keeping the whole Ghana clean will be attained only if the critical mass of all communities and other stakeholders in Ghana get involved in a coordinated and sustained effort in keeping themselves and their environments clean.”
He said an examination of the disease profile in New Juaben revealed that the communities were afflicted mainly by malaria, cholera, typhoid and measles largely due to poor sanitation.
The Traditional Council, therefore, launched “operation clean communities” in March this year to complement the government’s efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases.
Participants called for the involvement of government, root-based institutions, traditional authorities, local assemblies, sanitation service providers and faith-based organisations to mount serious health education programmes on sanitation and general hygiene protocols.
Such education should focus on the best hygiene practices by all households in eliminating stagnant water in and around houses and workplaces.
People were also advised to find the best ways of dumping refuse, dislodging choked drains, and embarking on fumigation in communities.
On the importance of changing perceptions, Daasebre said: “The belief that individuals cannot do anything on their own to stop the cycle of dirt and diseases must be debunked.”
Contributing to a panel discussion, Mr Isaac Apaw Gyasi, New Juaben South Municipal Chief Executive, said the Assembly was committed to dealing with poor sanitation in the capital and would soon make it expensive for people to throw waste around.
He said the local authority would, in the next few weeks, deploy sanitary officers to households to enforce proper sanitation and hygiene.
“If anyone is culpable, no one should come to plead for them. Let us allow the system to work,” he said.
He said the interference was a challenge in tackling poor sanitation in Koforidua and called for the cooperation of the public and traditional authorities to support the campaign of making Ghana clean succeed.
Ms Faustina Shardey, Acting Eastern Regional Manager of Zoomlion Ghana, said although the company had deployed several workers and containers to various public places, the places were still littered with dirt.
She said public education activities had been rolled out in collaboration with environmental health officers to help people appreciate the need to practice good hygiene by keeping their environments clean.
Dr Arko Akoto-Ampaw, Medical Director of Eastern Regional Hospital, noted that sanitation remained a vital place in the health and development of every person as it contributed to expanding lifespan and called on the public to take hygiene seriously.
Mr Kobby Asmah, Editor of Daily Graphic, said it was a shared responsibility in making Ghana the cleanest country on the continent, adding, “We can effect a great change when we come together as a community to address our sanitation challenges.”
He said Graphic would continue to lead in the sanitation campaign to get the entire country clean.
