The Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly and its sister city Palermo municipality in Italy together with other partners as part of measures to promote good hygiene practices of people to enhance a healthy lifestyle have launched the Operation Clean Your Surroundings campaign.
In 2023 alone, 27 houses without toilets and 30 other sanitation-related nuisances have been prosecuted successfully.
According to the Assembly, fifteen (15) communities in the metropolis are classified as open defecation prone, and the arrest for open defecation since 2017 has made significant gains. In 2021, 176 people were arrested for open defecation, 89 arrests in 2022, and 40 at the end of the third quarter of 2023.
Speaking at the launch of the campaign the Mayor of the STMA Mr Abdul Issah Mumin said according to the 2021 Population and Housing Census, 40.9% of households in the Metropolis have access to improved sanitation.
He said the enforcement of the Assembly’s by-laws on household toilets has helped increase access to improved household toilet facilities in the Metropolis by 20% as of the end of the third quarter of 2023. In this vein, the EU-funded Twin Cities in Sustainable Partnership Project is constructing 500 bio-digester toilets for households in poor coastal communities prioritizing female-headed households, disabled and aged. The selection process is currently ongoing.
The Mayor said the campaign aims to enforce the Assembly’s environmental sanitation bylaws and encourage citizens to take responsibility for their actions. The campaign will raise awareness of cleanliness, hygiene, waste management, and environmental preservation through media coverage and the deployment of a task force.
The campaign will educate, arrest, prosecute, name and shame sanitation-related offenders across the Metropolis.
