GAMA-SWP advices communities to maintain projects

By Samuel Dodoo, GNA

Hobor (G/A), Dec. 29, GNA – Madam Patience Kasreku, a Coordinator of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area – Sanitation and Water Project (GAMA-SWP) in the Ga South Municipality, has urged community members to support in the maintenance of public projects.

She said the act of destroying facilities meant to improve on their wellbeing at the least provocation was a setback to progress.

Madam Kasreku gave the advice when a delegation of the Social Accountability Unit, working under the GAMA–SWP of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources (MSWR), paid a visit to Hobor in the Ga South Municipality of the Greater Accra Region.

The delegation had been hinted that some residents at Hobor had destroyed the water tank the GAMA-SWP provided the Honise Basic School because they were prevented by the School authorities from using the toilet facility with the school children.

Madam Kasreku called on the Ga South Assembly to surcharge the cost of the damaged tank on the residents of Hobor to serve as a deterrent to others.

The GAMA-SWP is being sponsored by the World Bank through the MSWR to improve sanitation and hygiene in schools and low-income communities.

The visit was to share knowledge with the people, especially the youth, on environmental challenges and to carry out advocacy on the provision of household and school toilet facilities to prevent open defecation.

Madam Kasreku said the attitude of the people did not augur well for community development and the country as a whole.

She urged community leaders to step up education among their members to create awareness on the need to refrain from such acts.

At Sakumono, Miss Angela Essel, the GAMA-SWP Coordinator of Tema West Municipality, said the Assembly and the GAMA-SWP had embarked public health education to ensure that residents at Sakumono and its environs got sustainable and affordable toilet facilities and also upgrade existing ones in the schools.

“Hardly a day passes without the school children in the Municipality cleaning human excreta in their classrooms, all because the community members were not allowed to use the toilets in the schools,” she said.

Nana Danquah I, a Consultant of GAMA-SWP, said despite many interventions with support from the World Bank, communities continued to face challenges relating to sanitation due to lack of household toilets.

“It is for this reason that the GAMA-SWP is urging communities in the 11 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to intensify efforts to increase awareness, enforce compliance and strategies to achieve the aim of improving sanitation and hygiene among the citizenry,” he said.

Nana Danquah said the Sustainable Development Goal ‘SDG 6’ was aimed at ensuring that every household got a safe toilet to prevent open defecation by 2030.

He called on the people to register with the assemblies for the provision of the facilities to improve environmental sanitation in the Greater Accra Region.

He said the GAMA-SWP would expire in 2020 and called on the people to register with their assemblies to strengthen management of environmental sanitation in the Greater Accra Region.

The delegation included Mr Quranche Adama Tettey, the Consultant of Behavioural Change Communication, Nana Danquah I, Consultant of the GAMA-SWP, Mrs Joyce Kusi-Appiah and Mrs Josephine Manu, Deputy Directors of the Social Accountability Unit.

GNA

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