Kadjebi District tops the Open Defecation Free (ODF) league table with 104 communities under the programme, constituting 77.6 per cent out of the 26 Districts in the both Volta and Oti Regions.

Nkwanta North placed second in the Oti Region for ODF with 77 per cent with Jasikan District coming third with 47 ODF communities out of 94 communities representing 50 per cent.

Krachi-West and Krachi-Nchumuru districts occupied the bottom with zero per cent ODF community.

The programme, Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a GoG-UNICEF Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme that seeks to eradicate open defecation and promote household latrines so that majority of people would have access to sustainable and equitable basic sanitation.

The Kadjebi District which has 134 communities is a beneficiary of the programme since its inception in 2012.

Nana Kobea Bonso, UNICEF WASH Consultant, at a debriefing meeting with members of District Inter-Co-ordinating Committee on Sanitation (DICCS) at Kadjebi in the Oti Region said the government of Ghana and UNICEF is helping communities to become ODF through CLTS.

He said to help sustain the lead; households in the rural areas should be financed to have sustainable and durable toilets.

Nana Bonso, who visited six Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) groups in the District to acquaint himself with their operations, said VSLA has become indicators for women empowerment and needed to be sustained.

He said VSLAs members needed to be trained in income generation activities such as soap making, beads, pomade, among others for them to have extra income to improve their living conditions.

Nana Bonso appealed to the Kadjebi District Assembly to have a data on all the VSLA groups in the district and also monitor their activities.

This, he said, would enable the Assembly to connect VSLA members, who wanted loans to expand their businesses to financial institutions.

He also called for the formation of a new VSLA group to help achieve district wide ODF.

Mr. Gershon Akati, Chief Environmental Health Assistant said VSLA has been a major source of generating money to construct decent toilets and thus, needed the support of stakeholders in the sanitation drive to sustain their existence.

He said loan defaulters normally run-away and this poses a threat to the sustenance of the VSLAs.

Mr. Alhassan Sulemana, the Kadjebi District Coordinating Director commended the Environmental Health staff of the district for their yeoman's job and asked them to continue with the good work.

He said they needed to work hard to help maintain their position since they were competing with vibrant districts in the regions and thus, appealed to the members to help sustain the position.

Mr. Prosper Kampewu, a DICCS member assured the delegation of their readiness to support them in order to achieve the set target.

He advised Ghanaians to consider sanitation-related issues as business and invest in its high yielding financial turnouts.