Environmental Health Officers Received training to prosecute sanitation offenders.

Environmental Health Officers Received training to prosecute sanitation offenders.

Environmental Health Officers from Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Northern, Savannah, and Northeast regions have undergone a two-day capacity training programme to help them prosecute environmental and sanitation offenders as part of the government’s efforts in enforcing sanitation by-laws at the local level.

A total of 40 environmental health officers from the assemblies have benefited from the two-day capacity building training organised by the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources.

The participant officers were taken through the code of ethics of the environmental health prosecutors, summary of trials, drafting of summons and charge sheets, and witness abduction of evidence.

Participants were also taken through closing address and judgment, case briefs, moot court sessions, and how court sessions are done to help them dress up and address for courts to experience practical prosecution.

The training formed part of the capacity building activities of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) Sanitation and Water Project of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources and was funded by the World Bank.

Objective
The objective of the training was to help
the environmental health officers to successfully prosecute sanitation cases in court as part of strategies of the Ministry’s objective to achieve Sustainable Development Goal Six (SDG 6).
It was again sought to strengthen the capacity of the environmental health officers to ensure effective prosecution of offenders in the regions.

In a keynote, address read by the Acting Director of the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate at the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resouces, Akwettey Sampson, said that to achieve the SDG 6 required strategies including the prosecution of recalcitrant environmental sanitation offenders.

He stated that the Ministry has embarked on different sensitisation and education of the citizenry and would intensify prosecution as a behavioral change strategy towards improved environmental sanitation in the Country.

He noted that prosecutors should make sure that offenders are taken to court to enforce the sanitation by-laws within their jurisdictions to complement the Ministry’s efforts in achieving SDG 6.

Mr. Sampson explained that offenders would not be forgiven on till the court came out with their judgment, stating that “forgiveness would not help the ministry to improved on sanitation.”

“Environmental health officers have a critical role to play in ensuring the sanitation by-laws in their jurisdictions, they have to prosecute all offenders even their family members,” he said.

He challenges the officers to put in their best in the various assemblies to win the confidence of the judiciary to support them in the prosecution.

He revealed that the Ministry in collaboration with the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies would be embarking on a nationwide clean up exercise on September 30, 2023, as part of efforts to increase sanitation consciousness among Ghanaians.

For his part, the Northern Regional Environmental Health Director, Sulemana Yakubu commended the ministry for equipping them with the knowledge of prosecution.

He said that some communities and households are difficult on implementing the education that environmental health officers give to them stating that the prosecution would now support them in enforcing the by-laws without any hesitation.

Mr. Yakubu noted that these have come to make their work easier and would make residents understand the need to improve sanitation.

“It would support us in delivering sanitation services to the people because many of them want force before they can understand what sanitation means to them,” he said.

He explained that when officers got the knowledge to prosecute would witness changes in the environment and our health.

Source: Abukari Alhassan Baba