By Lydia
Kukua Asamoah/Eunice Hilda Ampomah, GNA
Accra, Sept. 25, GNA – The newly inaugurated
Media Coalition for Open Defecation (M-CODe) has urged the Government to set a
target date for ending open defaecation across the country.
The Coalition said the Government should in
addition, develop and publicise a roadmap that would lead to ending the menace
in line with deadline it would set for itself.
During the launch of M-CODe in, Accra, Mr Cecil
Nii Obodai, a Member of the Coalition, in a presentation, said the membership
of the Coalition was being moved by passion to partner the Government to fight
the menace that contributed to ranking Ghana 7th as the world’s dirtiest
country, some three years ago.
The Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water:
2015 Update and Millennium Development Goals Assessment, a joint-monitoring
report, released in July 2015, revealed that Ghana’s challenge to improve
sanitation had become starker with the country dropping even further amongst
the worst performing countries”.
That report said 7,500 children died annually
in the country from diarrhoea, which is linked to unsafe drinking water and
poor sanitation.
Mr Obodai, who is also a senior broadcaster
with the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, said the Ministry of Sanitation and
Water Resources on its part, should establish a budget line for the eradication
of open defecation in annual budgets that would sync with the roadmap and
ensure that every school and health centre; whether public or private, had
access to clean and hygienic toilet facilities by the end of 2019.
M-CODe had been established to support the
campaign and push for policy and influence public sensitisation as well as to
monitor to ensure that policies on open defecation and general sanitation were
implemented.
M-CODe was also to help inform and educate the
people to engender the needed behaviour change.
Membership of M-CODe, comprising various media
houses – both the state owned and private media – was brought together to help
government address the issue of open defecation being practised by close to 5.7
million Ghanaians.
The Ghana News Agency (GNA), New Times
Corporation, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Multimedia Group, Daily Graphic
and CitiFm are members.
Available statistics indicate that about one
out of five Ghanaians defaecate in the open, while a UNICEF study has also
revealed that one gram of human faeces may contain 10 million viruses, one
million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs, all these having
a negative consequences for health, productivity and socio-economic
development.
In a speech read on behalf of Madam Cecilia
Abena Dapaah, Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources by her Deputy Minister
Patrick Boamah, she said it was the Government’s desire that all Ghanaians
supported the drive towards improving upon sanitation in the country by playing
their parts and changing their attitudes towards littering, open defecation and
open urination.
She said she was happy that the media had
taken up the challenge to also play their part in driving the country towards
an open defaecation free (ODF) status.
ODF means that all community members were
using sanitation facilities such as toilets, instead of going to the open for
defaecation.
Madam Dapaah said the government had rolled
out various measures to improve sanitation situation in the country and that
the government’s agenda of ensuring that every household had improved toilet
was on course.
“This Government strongly believes that
providing toilets for Ghanaians is not only politically popular and socially
beneficial, but it indeed makes good economic sense. Achieving the SDGs target
of universal and adequate sanitation coverage improves the quality of life,
including health, environmental and economic benefits.”
She said it was highly unacceptable that
people still defecated openly and therefore, there was the need to take an
urgent and decisive action to reverse the trend.
GNA