Twice a day, Mohbi walks for close to a mile to visit the only public toilet in his town, Aboabo in Kumasi. He reaches in his pocket, finds a 1 Ghana Cedi note, and pays the toilet attendant. He removes his long flowing dress and hangs it on the wall as he stretches to collect a piece of paper from the attendant. He will use this paper to wipe himself afterwards.\u00a0 He is now naked- save for the boxer shots he wore underneath the long dress before coming to the place. Soon, he disappears into the entrance of the toilet, where several other persons are emptying their bowels.<\/p>\n
\u201cI live about a mile from here\u201d, he told me, after collecting his change and wearing his dress. \u201cWe are about fifty or something in my house,\u201d he says, collecting his change, \u201cWe don\u2019t have a toilet there so I come here.\u201d I ask about days that he might have troubles with his stomach. Mohbi smiles and says, \u201cI have to run because the toilet is far from my house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mohbi is not alone.<\/p>\n
In less than ten minutes, I see more than ten people- adults and children- come here and pay 30 Ghana Pesewas in toilet fees.<\/p>\n
Young Latifa Rashid lives with four other family members in their small rented room in a bigger compound house. She says her mother gives her money any time nature calls. \u201cAs for my little brother, he does it in a chamber pot which my mother throws in the gutter,\u201d Latifa said.<\/p>\n
Sadiya Abdul Salam runs a public toilet at Apagyahene Old Railways Quarters in Asawase. She agrees to an interview though she attends to customers- dishing out pieces of papers to them as they make payment. \u201cI can\u2019t put a figure to the number of people who come here every day\u201d, she said. \u201cSome days, plenty people come, other days, few people come. Sometimes, more than two hundred people come only in the morning. People frequent here most of the times\u201d Sadiya added.<\/p>\n
In a country where the statistics suggest only 15 per cent of the population can boast of toilets in their homes, a booming business at a public toilet is not surprising.<\/p>\n
A visit to the towns of Aboabo, Asawase and Ashtown, all in Kumasi, reveals many homes do not have toilet facilities. Operators of public toilets dotted at vantage places in these towns are cashing in on the situation.<\/p>\n
But this part of the country, and indeed, in many parts of the country, this act cannot be described as \u201cprivate\u201d as Ghanaians commonly refer to the attendance of toilet. In some of the public toilets I visit, people are queuing in wait to replace the next person who emerges from the hot room.<\/p>\n
By a public toilet in Asawase, a fishmonger, Maame Agyeiwaa, is arranging fresh fish on ovens near the entrance of the toilet. Her colleague is stoking the fire. The smell of smoked fish mixes with that of the public toilet. There are flies on the cold fish in baskets on the ground. These are agents of cholera. But Maame does not agree. \u201cThe fire is very hot. The flies won\u2019t settle on the fish. Even if they do, the heat from the fire will kill the germs,\u201d she assures me. This fish, she told me, is heading to various market centers in Kumasi for sale. I ask if anyone has ever complained of contracting any disease from her smoked fish. She smiles and replies, \u201cThat is not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fishmonger is not the only one doing brisk business near this toilet. A flour meal and a bakery stand about five meters away. A woman is packaging bread into transparent plastic bags. She has wrapped about ten of about fifty loaves on display. From my calculation, it won\u2019t take more than thirty seconds for the slowest fly in the nearby public toilet to arrive and settle with its filthy and infested legs on these loaves.<\/p>\n
The bread, like the smoked fish, will be sold to unsuspecting customers several miles away in some of Kumasi\u2019s markets. The woman packaging the bread is Fati Adogobire. \u201cI cover the bread after purchasing so I don\u2019t think it will be infested,\u201d says Fati Adogobire, \u201cI send the bread to Suame Magazine for sale. This is the business I do to provide for my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a country where cholera attempts to wipe whole families, this scenario should not persist. But it does. People\u2019s health is at risk.<\/p>\n
The Millennium Development Goals will expire in a few months. Ghana\u2019s target is for over 50% of the population to have toilets by then. This dream is however turning out to be a mirage.<\/p>\n
The Acting Director for Environmental Health and Sanitation at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Demedeme Naa says only 15 per cent of Ghanaians have access to improved latrines. 20 per cent of Ghanaians practice open defecation, while 30 per cent use shared latrines, which Naa says are not hygienic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you use shared latrine, you may get contaminated. If you do open defecation, what it means is that the fecal matter will eventually end up in our homes through the medium of flies carrying it around. It is a very dangerous situation and these are some of the risk factors that account for the outbreak of cholera in this country\u201d, the Acting Director declared.<\/p>\n
While the government struggles to meet the growing demands of the population some non-Government Organizations and companies are attempting to help. One such company is Kumasi-based Clean Team Ghana. It provides household toilets for the urban poor. The company provides a facility whose comfort is close to a Water Closet. It has a removable fecal container which is changed on weekly basis. The company has grown its client base from 20 clients in June 2011, to 670 customers last month.<\/p>\n
Statistics from the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly reveal only 50 per cent of the population have household toilets. Research Manager for Clean Team Ghana Limited, Asantewaa Gyamfi Tenkorang, says providing toilet facilities to community members is a must for all. \u201cThe elderly persons will have to ease themselves in chamber pots for their family members to throw away. The inconvenience and lack of dignity is too much. Imagine you are a community head and you have a visitor and you are not able to give that person the convenience of using a household toilet, it affects your dignity and your pride as a leader,\u201d Gyamfi Teknorang says.<\/p>\n
Dozens of people live in each of the houses I visited in these towns. The pressure on the small portable toilets leads to stench. It also leads to concerns of possible health risks. Gyamfi Tenkorang stresses the need for self-regulation in such instances. \u201cWe are doing everything we can to even get the best chemical that can handle up to five days no matter the number\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
Samuel Kofi Anane has one of the Clean Team toilets. He has about thirty tenants in his Ash Town, Kumasi compound house, but not all of them use the portable toilet. The toilet is as clean as his compound. Prior to the installation of the toilet, occupants of this house patronized the public toilets in town. \u201cIt is about five minutes\u2019 walk. At times you go and meet a queue and you have to wait. It became very difficult\u201d, he recalled.<\/p>\n
As Ghana joins other countries to mark World Toilet Day, people don\u2019t have much to show for places of convenience. Millions share public toilets. Millions more practice open defecation. The picture is not bright for the country. Persons like Mohbi will continue to jog to the public toilet in the center of town whenever they suffer a running stomach. Operators of public toilets will continue to cash in on the unfortunate situation. The ordinary Ghanaian remains the ultimate loser.<\/p>\n
Still, the government has set new targets that it hopes will change the situation. \u201cWe have set ourselves targets and we think that even though we will not achieve the MDG targets, we hope to make some modest progress to about 25%\u201d Naa said. \u201cWe have also put in place some strategies under the National Urban Renewal Programme to scale up the provision of household latrines\u201d he projected, adding that \u201cby 2015, we should be able to provide about 20,000 household facilities under this programme.\u201d<\/p>\n
Diseases like cholera hit hard and leave in its wake, death. One may think people will shun open defecation after learning about the disastrous consequences. But do you really blame them? Open defecation seems to be the best available option to them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By: Umaru Sanda Amadu<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twice a day, Mohbi walks for close to a mile to visit the only public toilet in his town, Aboabo in Kumasi. He reaches in his pocket, finds a 1 Ghana Cedi note, and pays the toilet attendant. He removes his long flowing dress and hangs it on the wall as he stretches to collect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":66726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[8],"yoast_head":"\n