Counting the cost of five years after the International Year of Sanitation

Isaac Yeboah Features Aug - 18 - 2013 , 18:41

I’m writing this article from Kumasi on the sidelines of a sanitation conference organized by the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS). This conference is the 24th of the annual Mole conference series at which issues of water and sanitation are placed center stage. Yes, for the past 24 years, a group of people who care passionately about the water and sanitation situation of this country get together for a number of days to reflect and strategize on how to influence the powers that be to take better care of Ghana.

The theme for this year’s conference is: “Building Effective Partnership for Scaling-Up Sustainable Sanitation Services in Ghana.” I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this conference can magically provide the solutions to resolve what has become one of the most intractable problems of our country. This is the second time I’m attending a Mole water and sanitation conference. My first experience with this conference series was in the year of our Lord 2008—five years ago; half a decade ago.

Sanitation as a national crisis:

The year 2008 was marked worldwide as the International Year of Sanitation. Ghana joined in and organized press conferences and the likes to mark the year. I was actively involved. Owing to my naivety at the time, I honestly believed that my motherland will, at long last, resolve this ugly matter by taking the right measures to change the status quo. The theme for Mole conference in 2008 was: “Reaching the MDGs for sanitation: Options to expand and accelerate coverage.” As things stand, we did not achieve the goals set.

2008 was an election year so if you would recall, the political parties put sanitation in their manifestos and went on a promising rampage to assure us of what they will do if they win the elections. One of the key promises the winning political party—the National Democratic Congress (NDC) made in its manifesto was about sanitation. Specifically, the NDC dared itself by promising Ghana that within 100 days of taking office, they will bring about an appreciable and measurable difference on the sanitation front. But the hundred days came and went with nothing to brag about.

That year, Ghana declared sanitation as a national crisis. It has been five year since 2008 and sanitation is still a national crisis. When something is a national crisis for so long, what does that mean? Does it suggest that people have accepted the abnormal as normal and become very comfortable with the status quo and as a result, stop trying to resolve the crisis? Does it also imply that children who grow up in the abnormal situation might never acknowledge the abnormality of their reality because that is what they are socialized with and is what they know? Dr. Doris Yaa Dartey, the writer

At best, during the past five years that Ghana declared sanitation as a national crisis matter, the country has taken baby steps to win the sanitation battle. We now have a number of privately-owned waste management companies; some of them are well equipped to deliver results. For instance, during the period, a local company, Zoomlion has grown to become a major player in West Africa. Again, during the period, a plastic waste business, albeit lame, has been born. There have been several awareness creation initiatives.

Despite these petty gains, the sanitation crisis remains. As a people, we have not mastered the art and science of what to do with the waste we generate out of living on this earth. Heaps of garbage is left uncollected in many parts of our country—in cities, towns, villages and cottages. Accra pumps its untreated liquid waste (toilet) of the estimated five million inhabitants directly into the Atlantic Ocean. This act is in violation of international laws. Accra has run out of holes made available from abandoned stone quarry sites into which it has for years dumped its boola (solid waste). Currently Accra’s bola is carried to Tema for final disposal.

We have paid lip-service to waste-to-energy initiatives. Accra Mayor Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije over-promised this and nothing came of it. As a country, we don’t practice waste sorting and separation. We dump all waste together and do little or no recycling and re-use. We’re not applying modern state-of-the-art techniques to our waste management. Politicians have banned single-use plastic bags with their mouths alone. If Rwanda could ban plastics, why can’t Ghana do the same? During the past five years, tons upon tons of plastic waste have been dumped into Ghana’s small size of land.

One of the strangest sanitation challenges our country faces is the lack of household toilets. Methinks it sounds so logical that if one is blessed with money to build a house, and the landlord sees wisdom in adding a kitchen to the house design, it should come without any hard thinking to also provide for a toilet! For after all, whatever goes in must necessarily come out! When you supply your dietary needs through cooking in the kitchen, provision should be made for the exit. In other words, a kitchen’s role in a home is to provide content for the entry whilst the toilet is for the exit: period!

The verdict: Still a crisis!

What does one call an unsolved crisis? A calamity? A catastrophe? Is a catastrophe or a calamity worse than a crisis or these are just synonyms—meaning the same thing? A crisis serves the purpose of calling attention to an emergency and a need to tackle a problem with urgency. In a crisis, you don’t waste time; you don’t find excuses to delay. You take actions; the right actions with a steely problem-solving determination. Admittedly, we still have work to do. The urgency remains for Ghana to solve this sticky sanitation matter once and for all.

The crisis of sanitation is at the very heart of our national development as we lay claim to credentials of a middle-income country. Without a doubt, no matter how hard and genuinely we work at branding Ghana and enhance its international reputation, the current state of our sanitation will always get in the way. When tourists arrive with their cameras and we welcome them full-heartedly with the much acclaimed Ghanaian hospitality, our poor state of sanitation bruises the image we so much desire to project. Our insanitary situation takes the shine off our aspirations to become a middle-income country.

The verdict is that five years after Ghana declared sanitation as a national crisis matter, the crisis is deepening. Children of this generation only know Ghana to be like this. Pink sheets or no pink sheets, the NDC government must fulfill its sanitation promise. Ghana’s independence is meaningless until we figure out how to take care of ourselves by cleaning up our acts. If our governments can’t provide leadership in this all-important aspect of our lives, then why should we even bother to vote them into office? Any government, any Municipal, Metropolitan, and District Chief Executive that cannot lead us to the promised land of good sanitation is not worth the trip to the voting booth and the exercise of the thumb.