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The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Univams Global Limited, an Agona Swedru-based computer and accessories company, Derrick Mbir, has urged the government to reintroduce the National Sanitation Day (NSD) initiative to help improve sanitation across the country.
“Prioritising sanitation is key towards improving public health, environmental sustainability and proper community and urban development,” he stressed.
He said reintroducing the national sanitation day and enacting a law to back it would be a decisive step towards preventing the spread of sanitation-related diseases and its attendant consequences on the country.
Mr Mbir, a former Gomoa Central Constituency Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), was speaking in an interview with Daily Graphic in the wake of the recent cholera outbreaks in some parts of the country.
He is among three applicants shortlisted to be considered as the new District Chief Executive for the Gomoa Central District in the Central Region.
In 2014, the NSD was initiated by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. The first Saturday of every new month was used to organise a nationwide clean-up exercise to help address the country’s sanitation challenges.
The exercise, which was in response to the cholera outbreak, sought to encourage the public to take greater responsibility for improving the environment and ensure that laws promoting good sanitation are respected.
He stated that the urgency of the request for the reintroduction of the sanitation day was a result of the outbreak of cholera last year in Kasoa in the Awutu Senya Municipality, which spread to Agona Swedru in the Agona West Municipality and led to the loss of lives.
He warned that Agona West shares boundaries with Gomoa Central and that if care was not taken, the disease could spread across the district and the entire region, saying, “This tragic situation is a stark reminder of the need for a proactive and sustained approach to the situation”.
“The reintroduction of sanitation will be instrumental in preventing such outbreaks in the future and protect public health as well,” he indicated and added that having worked closely with communities at the local level, the day, if reintroduced, would help in improving public health and environmental sustainability.
Touching on effective implementation of the initiative, he recommended a legal framework to provide enforcement mechanisms, make participation mandatory where necessary and ensure continuous commitment to national sanitation efforts irrespective of the government in power.
