Editorial: Clampdown on chop bars must not be cosmetic

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has been slow in cracking the whip but we must be grateful for small mercies.

Last Wednesday, the Public Health Directorate of the AMA decided to clamp down on operators of chop bars sited in unhygienic places.

There are very explicit regulations about the conduct of residents and how businesses must be operated in the jurisdictions of all these assemblies. But for reasons best known to these MMDAs, they are unable to compel people to comply with the laws.

By the regulations, all food vendors are required to undergo screening periodically to ascertain their health status, which is a prerequisite to their qualification to cook for the public.

The district assemblies are also enjoined to inspect food joints regularly to ensure that they operate in very hygienic conditions.

The AMA and other assemblies also gave landlords an ultimatum to phase out pan latrines but this outmoded facility, by means of which people attend to the call of nature, is still in use.

More outrageous is the mode by which the pan latrines are emptied. The human waste is emptied into bowls carried by sanitary labourers, a practice referred to as “African Cup”, and emptied into septic tanks.

The sages say that cleanliness is next to Godliness and so it behoves everybody to keep his or her surroundings clean.

It is on record that as of last week, a total of 17,527 cholera cases and 173 deaths had been recorded in nine regions of the country. We are told that presently, the Northern Region remains the only region which has not recorded any case of the disease.

With the level of advancement in science and technology, our capital city should not be recording the highest cholera infection and subsequent deaths in the country when our strict adherence to personal hygiene could have prevented these needless deaths.

The Daily Graphic thinks that institutional failure has brought about pain and grief in our society because if the district assemblies had enforced their own bylaws, the mounting garbage would have been cleared long ago.

We agree that leadership must lead by example but again, we think this should be the last time our President and his vice would lead the crusade to promote clean environments.

That mandate lies with the district assemblies and if that does not happen, the chief executives must be shown the exit.

Be that as it may, it is the hope of the Daily Graphic that the move by the AMA to get chop bar operators to run their businesses in a clean environment will not be a nine days’ wonder.

This exercise must be sustained and extended to other areas of environmental sanitation until our people learn to appreciate the risks involved in leaving the environment filthy.