‘Open defaecation must stop’
It doesn’t matter where they do it – near gutters, behind kiosks, beaches, behind trees – whenever nature calls, most people stop to ease themselves.
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Men especially, don’t really mind whizzing out their manhood in broad daylight to urinate. Women, however, find it difficult easing themselves in public in broad daylight.
It is when it becomes critical that a woman eases herself and exposes some assets, for lack of any place of convenience.
If you live in a residential area, you may not witness this. All you need to worry about is your wall which will be watered with urine by passers-by who cannot hold on till they get to a place of convenience.
Usually, house owners try to curb that by putting up a sign that reads, “Don’t Urinate Here. Spot fine GH¢200”. They still do anyway, regardless of the sign post.
In the underprivileged areas, however, it is not rare to find people poohing in the open. Step out at dawn or late in the night and you will see people, from father down to their last child, lined up poohing.
The people living in Nima can tell you how a footbridge in the community eventually became a place of convenience; one of the main reasons it had to be removed.
The Millennium Development Goal 7.C is to halve by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
Ghana may have achieved the target for access to potable water but a progress report on Sanitation and Drinking Water by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Fund indicates that Ghana ranks seventh in poor sanitation globally. In Africa, Ghana ranks second in open defaecation. How terrible.
Open defaecation can cause a lot of health problems including, cholera which Ghana records virtually every year. Open defaecation is a bad practice and thus, needs to be stopped.
But can we blame those who practice open defaecation? Not a lot of people are privileged with private places of convenience. Although, there are public places of convenience, they are not enough and are not free either.
When one is in dire need of attending to the call of nature and has to queue at a KVIP, then there would be no other option than to find a “convenient” place to relieve oneself. You will understand better when you have a stomach upset.
Go to market places and count the number of places of convenience; few or none. Most of the women urinate in small plastic buckets or cans and pour the urine into gutters. Even when there are places of convenience, some would rather do it in their plastic buckets than pay to do same.
The same situation pertains at bus terminals and stops. You will find no convenient place to urinate let alone think of passing faecal matter.
In April 2015, the World Bank signed a USD4.85 million grant agreement with the Government of Ghana to provide toilet facilities in low income areas of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area. Have you seen any significant change in the availability of toilet facilities in the low income areas? I haven’t seen any.
Fidelity Bank did well by providing a 12-seater Biofil Toilet facility for the St. Maurice R/C JHS at La, Accra, in June last year as part of its corporate social responsibilities.
Our President has said that it is not the presidency’s duty to provide toilet facilities but the duty of Metropolitan, District and Municipal Assemblies (MMDA). MMDAs, please it is your duty so provide your people with places of convenience. We will be grateful.
We need “tankas” (health inspectors) back to keep us in check but most importantly, we need more public toilet facilities.