A legal practitioner, Yaw Oppong says government’s failure to provide public toilets \u00a0is to blame for the current cholera outbreak in the capital.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019\u2026it is a problem caused by the authorities either by their omission to do what they are supposed to do or by their own commission; because you can walk from here [Adabraka] to Accra Central \u00a0and there is not one public toilet which is free,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
According to him health and government officials should stop blaming the citizens entirely for the epidemic.<\/p>\n
Lawyer Oppong added that Ghanaians will stop defecating in the open and drainages if the authorities provide basic amenities as well ensure every home has toilet and other sanitary facilities.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019\u2026<\/span>What do you expect the [people] to do when you don\u2019t provide free public toilet facilities for use; what do they take our taxes for\u2026\u2019\u2019 he quizzed.<\/p>\n Speaking on Citi FM\u2019s News Analysis Programme<\/span>, The Big Issue<\/strong><\/em>, Mr. Oppong<\/span> said the state is largely to blame for the cholera outbreak. \u2018\u2019I have taken the position that I am no more going to blame myself when these things occur; let us blame the state.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n He stated that, \u2018\u2019you don\u2019t expect the person who earns about GHC2.00 a day to use about GHC 1.00 just to go to the washroom.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018\u2019When you travel outside, within the shortest possible distance there are public washrooms; even on highways<\/span>, from here to Kumasi, can you get one public washroom\u2026,\u2019\u2019 he fumed.<\/p>\n \u2018\u2019If the state will not provide the appropriate facilities for people not to contract these diseases and for people not to obey laws, they should stop blaming us,\u2019\u2019 he concluded.<\/p>\n On his part the Editor of the Business Finder,\u00a0Toma Amihere<\/em>\u00a0also suggested that tax all the food sellers properly to be able to provide \u2018\u2019more hygienic conditions and washrooms for the people.<\/p>\n \u2018\u2019Those people [food sellers] are making very large profits and I think it is time the authorities force them to pay taxes; think it is time with this cholera outbreak \u00a0government found a way to [tax them],\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n Toma noted that the monies collected from the food vendors can be used to provide the basic needs.<\/p>\n The Public Health Directorate of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) on Thursday told Citi News<\/strong> that the outbreak of cholera in the metropolis is gradually reaching an epidemic status.<\/p>\n Over 500 cases of cholera have so far been recorded in Accra alone between June and July which has caused the death of five people.<\/p>\n The assembly has been accused of supervising the indiscriminate disposal of waste in the capital, which has resulted in the outbreak of the disease.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cWe are heading towards an epidemic and that is why there is the need for us to rather focus on preventing the spread.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Evans Effah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A legal practitioner, Yaw Oppong says government’s failure to provide public toilets \u00a0is to blame for the current cholera outbreak in the capital. \u2018\u2019\u2026it is a problem caused by the authorities either by their omission to do what they are supposed to do or by their own commission; because you can walk from here [Adabraka] […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":19455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43,38],"class_list":["post-36507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}