We have a duty to keep Ghana clean

The huge cost of poor sanitation in the country, without doubt, calls for a spirited action to awaken the consciousness of Ghanaians to keep their surroundings clean in order to avoid preventable diseases and their implications for the national economy.

This consideration, clearly, is what informed the decision by the government to institute the National Sanitation Day (NSD).

A professor at the University of Ghana last Tuesday said poor sanitation cost the country $300 million yearly and added that that amount could be used to purchase 500 megawatts of power to address the current energy crisis in the country.

A well-constructed national sanitation programme will certainly enhance preventive health because a clean environment will make it difficult for an outbreak of cholera as we experienced in 2014 that claimed more than 200 lives and infected about 30,000 people.

When the NSD was started, it received much patronage at the national level, but subsequent ones showed a decreasing level of patronage, a situation that made the Daily Graphic to question the sustainability of the NSD.

Thankfully, with the decentralisation of the NSD to the various regions, things seem to be picking up.

One reason that might have led to the positive patronage of the exercise in the regions is that chiefs, elders and opinion leaders still hold sway over the people in the rural areas.

Therefore, with some effort, the chiefs and other leaders in the various communities can summon the people to respond to the national call to clean up the environment.

Also, in the past, such exercises were undertaken on days when people did not go to work, so that the full complement of the people of the area could be garnered towards the exercise.

However, the situation in the big cities and other urbanised areas is what poses a major challenge to the national exercise.

In these areas, Saturdays are very crucial days when different people have different programme schedules, and the situation is further compounded by the funeral activities that take place on these days.

The Daily Graphic is of the view that instead of centralising the NSD throughout the country, the various areas could be given the opportunity to draw their own convenient and workable plans.

Their choice of a day for the clean-up exercise does not have to be the first Saturday of every month but any day of the month that they may find convenient, so long as they can agree on one day in the month to undertake the exercise.

We want to appeal to all Ghanaians to not forget so soon the blow that the outbreak of cholera dealt us as a people,  needlessly claiming so many lives.

We must try and avoid the ‘I can’t be bothered’ attitude because we think we live in areas that are free from dirt and insanitary conditions.

We all owe it a duty to keep our country clean.