Ghana’s sanitation situation is in a rather appalling state and this has lingered on for years. Clean water and sanitation is the 6th of the sustainable development goals of the UN but I can confidently say that Ghana has a lot of work to do if it has any hope of achieving this goal, looking at the state of affairs in the country today.
Yes, the media has reported on the state of sanitation in the country, several times, covering different angles, as a matter of fact, it has become a norm such that it’s no news anymore, it has actually become a cliché. A few times, cleanup exercises have been organized in some regions and some communities but this obviously does not help much.
The national sanitation day instituted by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for the first Saturday of every month to promote sanitation and hygiene among citizens is rarely recognized or patronized. In instances where it is observed, waste and rubbish is found in those same places few days or weeks after the cleanup exercise. Just in March this year, scores of traders within the Central Business District of Accra joined in the exercise to rid the area of filth as part of the monthly national sanitation day exercise organized by the AMA and Zoomlion. Take a visit to the same area today and you will marvel at how much filth the place is characterized by and that’s just one out of the numerous examples of similar instances. It’s very disturbing to see what it has come to and how much the situation keeps worsening every time.
Ghana has been rated the 7th dirtiest country globally and this is according to a sanitation report released in 2015 by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. There are 196 countries in the world, out of which 54 are African countries, and it is an utmost disgrace that Ghana is ranked the 7th in terms of poor sanitation, this is how terrible the situation is.
So I ask myself, why Ghana? When other African countries are doing much better in the sanitation sector and are making gains from it as well to support the country’s tourism sector and development?.
Let’s take a look at a few, Kenya for instance has beautiful clean cities that make the country attractive to visit, Windhoek is the capital and the largest city of the republic of Namibia. It is a clean city and has adopted innovative ways of utilizing local communities for solid waste collection and removal. In South Africa, Johannesburg and Cape Town which are both cities in the country are very clean and also serve as tourist attraction sites for many people around the world.
Obviously, these countries have systems in place to keep the country clean and these systems work. They are proof that it can be done, why can’t we just keep our county clean and tidy? The questions we should ask ourselves is how do they do it? What measures are they putting in place and how are they getting them enforced?
That brings me to the issue of the laws and policies that govern sanitation in Ghana. How many laws and or policies do we have in the country to deal with issues of sanitation? How many of them are actually functioning and being enforced?
Well first of, Ghana has no set down law on sanitation that has laid down punishments to deal with offenders, all we have are bye laws and policies, these are not as strong and effective as a law is and would therefore not yield operative results.
The National Environment and Sanitation Policy for the Water and Sanitation Sector of the country is one of the sanitation policies that exist in Ghana. This policy came into force in 1999, and was operational until 2006. The policy was reviewed in 2010 to develop a clear and nationally accepted vision of environmental sanitation as an essential social service and a major determinant for improving health and quality of life in Ghana. The policy is a necessary tool required to help shape all efforts in dealing with the overwhelming challenges of poor sanitation in Ghana but I ask, since its review in 2010, how much improvement have we seen in the sanitation sector in the country?
The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development which is the lead sector agency, in implementing the policy in conjunction with the National Environmental Sanitation Policy Co-ordination Council, including representatives from relevant Government agencies, the NGOs and private sector groups, as well as the Human Settlements and Environment Division are the institutions put in charge to implement this policy. How much evident work do we see them do?
Well except for the few cleanup exercises organized by the local government and private sector players like the Zoomlion as well as the adverts on keeping the environment clean which usually are necessitated by the outbreak of some disease related to poor sanitary conditions like cholera, I don’t see much being done by the AMA, the ministry of local government and Rural development and the other district and municipal bodies set up to deal with issues of sanitation in the country, even if there is work being done, how progressive is it? How effective? And how much evident change will it bring?
There is also the model sanitation bye-law which was put before parliament in 2015 to serve as a punitive law which will stiffen punishment for sanitation offenders.
A year on and we don’t know the progress of that bye-law and whether or not it even is working. If there are no stringent laws put in place to deal with the bizzare attitude of Ghanaians towards sanitation in the country, and people to implement the laws to the peak to deter others from doing the wrong thing, much of the work will still be left to do.
No substantial progress can be made until the negative attitudes of Ghanaians towards sanitation is dealt with. Littering the streets, the lorry stations, markets, drainage systems, water bodies, open air defecation, these are things we see on a daily basis and obviously, cautioning and education has not been enough of a measure to deter the ordinary irresponsible Ghanaian from littering and destroying the environment and its beauty. Laws should be put in place to fine people reasonable amount of monies that will make them learn their lessons and desist from littering.
Now we must note that if a problem is not diagnosed and addressed from its grassroots, not much change can be effected. If the leaders in the various districts and communities cannot deal with the issue at their level, the general problem in the country cannot be dealt with. It is only when it is dealt with from the grassroots that maybe we can hope for some significant progress in the sector.
There are lots of ways to deal with the devastating problem of poor sanitation in the country and find a lasting solution. We can look at first changing our terrible attitudes towards keeping the environment clean and free from filth.
How? Well, the churches can talk about it, the schools can do more education on keeping the environment clean , families can participate by enlightening their members on the effects of filth in the environment and sensitizing them, then we can think of getting more landfills at the appropriate places where waste can be disposed of in a safe way and recycling plants; we can look at getting effective punitive laws that will put people on their feet and force them to do the right thing, there is the recycling factor to consider, and a lot more than we are doing as a country.
Ghana can become a beautiful place if everybody sits up to help stop the situation of poor sanitation in the country.