Disclosing this at the inauguration of the Bolga East district in Zuarungu, the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Joseph Kofi Adda, said the intervention will address the alarming rate of open defecation.

“When it comes to open defecation, out of ten people, only one person uses  a toilet facility and the remaining nine defecate in public and this is not good enough for our health.  But on my part as a Minister, I have made available fifty toilet facilities for construction this year for the Bolga East District. This will contribute towards reducing the menace of open defecation and aid in our quest to achieving the sustainable development goal six”.

Mr. Adda was also optimistic that, the district’s water challenges would soon be resolved when the $42m Tono water treatment plant construction is finally completed.

He hinted that government was about concluding a credit facility from the World Bank to develop and construct the Pwalugu Multi-Purpose dam which will add  250 megawatts of electricity to the national grid and facilitate irrigation farming in the district.

Member of Parliament for Bolga East, Dr. Dominic Ayine, lauded government for the creation of the district and urged Assembly members to eschew  petty partisanship disagreements which would retard the development of the area.

He appealed to land owners to release land for the construction of the district assembly office block and other structures which befit the status of a district.

He also wants government to facilitate the completion of  the Zuarungu market to support the assembly generate revenue for development.

The Bolga East District Assembly is currently using the Ministry of Food and Agriculture office block as its   temporary office block.

Inauguration of Tempane and Garu Districts

The Garu and Tempane districts were also inaugurated respectively at the  Tempane park.

Upper East Regional Minister Rockson Bukari, said the creation of the two districts was evident that government is committed to bring development to the doorsteps of the people.

Zoonlion Ghana also supported the district with ten tricycles and thirty waste bins.

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By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Additionally, 11,985, representing 58 percent of the basic schools, do not have water facilities.

For instance, out of the 3,754 public basic schools in the Ashanti Region, 1,427 are without toilet facilities, and in the Western Region 1,132 out of the 2,408 schools are without toilets.

[contextly_sidebar id=”LwUEj5CD4e5B1gtP6wkH5YjpBS56m5mw”]In the Upper West Region, out of the 1,165 schools, 350 are without toilets.

Access to regular water supply

According to the Education Management Information System (EMIS) for the 2016-2017 academic year, even though about 65 percent of all basic schools had latrines, only 42 percent had access to water supply.

The EMIS indicates that the lack of access to regular water supply sources had made it difficult for students to use school latrines or to encourage positive hygienic practices and habits.

To address the above challenges, the Ministry of Education, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resource, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders, has developed a strategic document which seeks to provide children with a clean, safe and healthy learning environment.

Known as the National Costed Strategy for WASH in Schools (WinS), the strategic document, which is expected to be implemented from 2018 to 2030, seeks to cover public basic schools, including all public kindergartens, primary and junior high schools (JHS).

At a stakeholders’ consultation workshop to validate the strategic document in Accra, the Chief of WASH at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mr David Duncan, painted a rather gloomy state of hygiene in schools in the country.

He said for instance that two out of every five children went to school without toilet facilities and were forced to defecate in the open, while more than half of schoolchildren attended schools that had no water facilities.

Major challenge

Describing it as a major challenge, Mr Duncan said if the current trend was allowed to persist, it meant that “we are looking at a whole generation of children potentially going to school without toilet and without water to wash their hands.”

He said the strategic document sought to identify what the country needed to do in order to ensure that the future generation did not go to school without those facilities.

“What we have to do is to make sure that we have toilets in all schools, what we have to do is to make sure that we have water in all schools and what we have to do is to ensure that all children have access to water to wash their hands,” Mr Duncan later told the Daily Graphic.

He explained that in the last few years, UNICEF had channelled millions of dollars into the sector and that for this year alone, it had spent $4 million on WASH in schools.

Owning the strategic document

The Director of the School Health Education Programme (SHEP) of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Nana Esi Inkoom, explained that the strategy was developed with technical and financial support from UNICEF.

She also expressed gratitude to the government of Canada and other stakeholders “for the immense support towards the development of the strategic document.”

Nana Inkoom said the strategy would provide guidance and direction in translating the National Minimum Standards and Implementation Modules for WASH in Schools into practice, using common approaches across schools in the country.

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By: Graphic Online/Ghana

The post 36% of public basic schools without toilets – Report appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

This happens in the wake of several other reported seizure of public properties in other regions of the country after the swearing in of the New President Nana Addo Dankwa last Saturday.

In an interview with Citi News the Eastern Regional Police PRO,  ASP Yaw Nketiah Yeboah disclosed that NPP activists took over the operation of all the public toilets in the municipality the midnight after Nana Addo was sworn into office as President of Ghana.

He said “The Eastern Region has been very calm and peaceful after the elections right until the evening of January 7th after the swearing in of President Nana Addo when the NPP supporters went to seize all public toilets in Anlo town, Betom, Krutown and others in the municipality, sacking the operators and terminating the contractual agreement the previous operators had with the New Juaben Municipal assembly which is expected to end on 2nd of March this year instead of allowing them to operate till the time their contract expires”.

He added ” the police command quickly moved in to calm situations and had a meeting with the original operators whose contract has not expired and  it was agreed that the NPP supporters should pay the operators for the month of January to March when their contract expires”

He stated that the police command wanted to take them to court for settlement but they all agreed on out of court settlement.

He further explained that in the New Juaben North Constituency the NPP activist had already taken over the Toilet Operations without the knowledge of the command. He said ” the operators handed over the operation of the Toilets to the Npp supporters peaceful, the NPP activist claims in 2008 the NDC supporters did not consider any contractual agreement they had with the Assembly before taken over the Toilet Operations”

The PRO added that the Regional police command is Ready to deal with any political group who commits any criminal offence by seizure of public properties in the Region.

Nti Emmanuel a victim of the seizure and a former operator of the Anglican toilet in Betom in an interview with citi news explained how his facility was seized by the Npp supporters, he said ” I was there when I heard of a meeting the Npp assembly members had on taking over Public Toilet but I did not believe because I have one Assembly member in my area that am in good terms with in the person of Honourable Twumasi so I asked him and he confirmed but I did not expect them to come on to me like how they came”

He continued “I was at the facility when the NPP supporters came with macho men to ransack the place, tore the Toilet rolls for passer-bys to come in and use the Toilet for free.”

Nti Emmanuel expressed shock at the behaviour of the NPP supporters and asked the President and party leaders to call their supporters to order, he said, “myassemblyman Twumasi was in charge of this facility when the late president Mills took office in 2008 but he was allowed to operate for over one and half year till the contract he had with the Assembly expired so am really shocked for this behaviour because Nana Addo pledged to be president for all during his swearing in so he should please do something about it.”
By: Neil Nii Amatey Kanarku/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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