The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Dr. Freda Prempeh has stated that access to good toilet facilities in our communities and homes across Ghana should be seen as a human right and not just a basic necessity.
She said there are 3.5 billion people still living without safely managed sanitation across the world, while about 800 million people in Africa lack toilet facilities.
She said that due to lack of good toilet facilities, people engage in open defecation, which is not good.
She explained that since Ghana and the rest of the world viewed access to water as a human right issue, then access to toilet facilities and an end to open defecation should also be viewed as human rights issues because they are all linked.
She said that open defecation brings a lot of diseases because people even do it in our water bodies, which does not make the water appropriate for use.
She stated that the government of Ghana, through the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, has invested heavily in several projects that would help eradicate open defection and enhance safe sanitation practices.
She said at the end of the GAMA Project in December 2020, the project had delivered 48,641 improved household toilets, benefiting about 389,128 people, and 406 improved and modern disability-friendly, gender-sensitive institutional toilet facilities, benefiting about 251,872 pupils.
She said the project will also expand and rehabilitate the Asafo Sewerage System in Kumasi and provide an additional 42,000 household toilets and 129 institutional toilets in the Greater Accra and Greater Kumasi metropolitan areas respectively.
Hon. Freda Prempeh spoke to the media during the commemoration of 2023 World Toilet Day yesterday.
The commemoration of this day is to unite everybody who is passionate about toilets to ensure access to improved toilets.
The theme for commemoration was “Accelerating Change through Strategic Partnership: Every Contribution Counts.”
Hon Freda Prempeh therefore urged people to stop open defecation and help the government in its efforts to stop open defecation.
She appealed to the media to assist in the fight against open defecation.
Source: Clinton Akwasi Amoako/Peace FM News
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