OPEN DEFECATION - THE BIGGEST SANITATION PROBLEMS IN UE (D/G Monday September 15, 2008. PAGE 40)

“Sanitation is a way of life. It is expressed in the clean home, the clean farm, the clean business, and industry, the clean neighbourhood and community. Being a way of life, it must come from within; it is nourished by knowledge and grows as an obligation and as an ideal in human relations."—World Health Organisation (WHO).
In the year 2004, the Bolgatanga Municipality was adjudged the cleanest municipality in Ghana and was given the "Cleanest City Award".
One would have thought that the conferment of that award would spur the people in the Bolgatanga Municipality on and encourage the administrators of the municipality to continue to strive for more laurels.
Four years down the line, the municipality has lost its shine. Bolgatanga is facing poor sanitation problems. The entire municipality is in “shit”. Yes shit, waste matter from both human beings and animals have littered the whole place.
It is common to come across the residents, both young and old, male and female, jostling one another for space to openly defecate.
Apart from that, some of the residents continue to dump refuse indiscriminately, thereby worsening the deplorable sanitation condition of the area.
Despite the efforts being made by the Municipal Assembly and organisations like Zoomlion Ghana Limited, to address the situation, especially the open defecation gets worse every day.
The sanitation situation in Bolgatanga can be described as destructive. Open places such as the frontage of the offices of the Information Services Department, the Basket Ball Court area, near the Black Star Hotel, the stretch of land close to St Clement Primary School at Dapooretidongo, the storm drains near the Aningazanga cluster of schools, have been soiled by people who prefer to defecate in the open, be it in the morning, afternoon and night damning the health implications of their act.
But why do people engage in such a negative act? “Public places of convenience for the entire population are not enough, compelling the people to practise open defecation, wrap the faeces in plastic bags and throw them in uncompleted buildings," says Mr Abugbilla Mathew Asampana, the Upper East Regional Environmental Health Officer.
Public toilets are limited in the Bolgatanga township. In the communities where such facilities exist, this writer observed that the people would prefer squatting in the open to ease themselves than paying for the service.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Report for 2006, open defecation was widespread in the Upper East Region with about 82 per cent of the people without any access to latrines.
It added that 17.5 per cent of 1,134 households had improved sanitation facilities, ranking the region the ninth out of the 10 regions in the country.
When contacted, the Municipal Co-ordinating Director, Mr Philibert K. Kuupol, conceded that open defecation and the general deplorable sanitation problem in the area was one of the biggest challenges facing the municipality.
While admitting that some residents continued to dump refuse indiscriminately, Mr Kuupol said others defecated in the open, adding that the practice of open defecation was as a result of the failure of landlords to provide latrines in their homes.
That situation, he said, had compelled people to defecate in the open. Mr Kuupol, therefore, advised the people in the municipality to desist from such unhygienic acts and to ensure the regular cleanliness of their surroundings to prevent the outbreak of communicable diseases.
He stated that in view of those difficulties, the assembly assisted some landlords with funds to enable them to construct latrines in their houses, stressing, “Sadly, the money was not used for the intended purpose.”
Sadly, according to Mr Kuupol, the assembly could not trace the documentation to know who benefited from the funding.
"In view of that the assembly at one of its meetings passed a resolution to shelve the matter and start everything from the scratch," the MCD said.
He said the assembly was now insisting that all new estate developments in the municipality should have latrines.
Mr Kuupol stated that with the help of its members, the assembly had embarked on an intensive public education to discourage people from defecating in the open.
Statistics obtained from Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate in the region state that public facilities for excreta disposal in the region are woefully inadequate for the population.
For instance, for public facilities, there are 123 septic tank latrines, 171 Kumasi Ventilated Improved Pits (KVIPs), six water closets and eight environs loo toilets.
For the private facilities, there are 3,119 water closets, 247 KVIPs, 22 septic tank latrines, 156 latrines, four pit latrines and three pour flash facilities.
Interestingly, out of the 156 pan latrines, 78 are in government quarters in the regional capital.
The revised environmental sanitation policy (May, 2007) of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, bucket (pan) and open trench latrines are seriously discouraged and must be phased out as they do not meet minimum sanitary standards.
Recommended technologies are the water closet and septic tank system, the pour flush latrine (where water is used for anal cleansing), the ventilated improved pit latrine (VIP), the aqua privy, and any other proven technologies recommended by the ministry.
According to the Regional Environmental Health Officer, Mr Abugbila, "as a result of these inadequacies, the people practise open defecation, wrap and throw faeces into uncompleted structures".
He noted that unavailability of genuinely acquired sites for solid waste disposal was another challenge facing the region, adding "There is still more to be done, particularly, in the area of public facilities."
Mr Abugbila said "from the foregoing, it is evident that whilst the world is striving for better health and longevity of life through hygiene practices, we are negating the whole process."
According to the Water and Sanitation Sector Monitoring Platform (WSMP) Ghana report (August 2008), human faeces left in the open fields, bushes or drains generate millions of viruses, bacteria and parasites.
Houseflies usually fly between those faeces and the food including fruits. When human beings eat such contaminated foods, they inadvertently eat their own faeces and that of others.
We, therefore, open ourselves up for illnesses that can even lead to deaths. Rains also wash away most human faeces left in the open into rivers, ponds, open wells, lagoons and beaches.
According to the Ghana Statistical Service (MICS 2006 report), about 19 per cent of the population (nearly 4.2 million people) still rely on untreated water from streams, dams, ponds, rivers and open wells for drinking and cooking. They might, therefore, have been drinking their own or other people's faeces and injecting themselves with germs and diseases.
Human faeces are the primary source of diarrhoea pathogens.
According to UNICEF, the daily under five child deaths from diarrhoea diseases in 2004 was 5,000. In Ghana, there are reports that about 80 per cent of all out-patient department (OPD) cases are sanitation and water-related.
An Extension Services Specialist of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) in the Upper East Region, Mr Emmanuel Adii, speaking at a public forum in Bolgatanga recently, said sanitation related diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria and skin diseases, run high among the 10 top causes of OPD attendance.
According to him, in 2006, malaria accounted for 42.2 per cent under five admissions in the region.
Ghana is currently on the downside in terms of achieving the MDGs for access to improved toilet facilities. Things can only change when radical measures (policies, programmes and plans, as well as high commitment to implementation) are taken to "rescue" the situation.