Over 10 million Ghanaians use shared or public latrines due to the absence of household latrines in both rural and urban areas. Majority of Ghanaians are left to spend a lot of time to queue at public latrines or risk the shame of open defecation.
A most recent report on sanitation by the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) of the WHO and UNICEF states that only about 2.2 million people in Ghana have access to decent household toilets.
Data by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) shows that about 80% of all Out Patient Department (OPD) cases such as malaria, diarrhea, cholera and hepatitis are sanitation and water related.
Consequently, Ghana is said to be off-track in terms of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for access to improved toilet facilities.
The Coalition of NGO’s in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS) has said that government needs to declare sanitation a national emergency and lead efforts at implementing the national sanitation plan as well as commit funding.
According to JMP, if the rate of progress in Ghana should remain as it is now, then the country will achieve just about 15% by 2015. As at 2006, Ghana had achieved only 10% instead of about 30%, which could have translated into 53% by 2015.
The UN declared 2008 International Year of Sanitation as an opportunity for countries with low sanitation coverage to improve. However, the year is almost ending and Ghana is showing no sign of progress.
This was revealed at a press conference in Accra by CONIWAS as a follow up to a communique’ issued at its Mole XIX conference in Koforidua recently.
Mr. Emmanuel Addai, Communication Specialist of the Water and Sanitation Monitoring Platform (WSMP) said that open defecation is prevalent in all ten regions of Ghana but most widespread in the Upper East with about 82% without any form of latrine, Upper West 79% and Northern region with about 73%.
“The most recent report from the Ghana Statistical Service indicates that about 180,000 people representing about 0.8% of the population still use the pan or bucket latrines that has been declared globally as unsafe”.
He regretted that sewerage systems are virtually non-existent in Ghana apart from Tema and some satellite systems in parts of Accra and Kumasi. Therefore, he said that the sludge has to be removed from septic tanks or pits for treatment or disposal elsewhere.
Information from the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment shows that Ghana is able to manage only 30% of solid waste generated daily.
The deficit of 70% accounts for the increasing heap of rubbish found in major cities.
“The sustainable development of our country hinges on improved sanitation. Poor sanitation impacts negatively on human dignity, causes misery, impedes productivity, strains our health system and consigns millions of people into abject poverty,” stated the Vice Chair of CONIWAS, Mrs. Loretta Roberts.
She observed that Ghanaians have a national attitudinal and behaviourial posture toward sanitation due to non-existence of law enforcement, which must be confronted.
She urged the media to put a spotlight on sanitation as a national crisis issue.
A communique’ issued by CONIWAS at its Mole XIX conference in Koforidua urged government to take courageous steps to ban the use of thin plastics and encourage the use of paper bags, baskets and other degradable alternatives.
It said, “Ghana can adopt best practices by other countries such as placing high taxes on plastics to render them unattractive to use, cut down importation and production of plastics, provide free re-useable plastic bags at points of product purchase and recycling.”
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