Trash law to punish littering and make ‘Sanitation Day’ compulsory
A couple of weeks ago, I drew attention to moves towards a lousy needless duplicity and unconstitutionality of a law to punish people for littering as well as to compel citizens to undertake clean-up exercises on particular days. This was on the back of an announcement by the Local Government Ministry of a draft bill for the purpose because interest in the monthly exercise was fast waning.
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I read again early morning, on April 21, 2015, that the Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development , Mr Emmanuel Agyekum, had expressed optimism that Cabinet was set to approve this for onward transmission to Parliament to be passed into law.
I am very certain this trash bill has not come to the attention of the Attorney-General (AG) or her department.
In our Criminal Offences Act, it is an offence to throw rubbish on the street, etc and the law in section 296 says: “Whoever does any of the following acts shall be liable to a fine not exceeding ¢200,000 namely — in any town places, or causes or permits to be placed, any carrion, filth, dirt, refuse, or rubbish, or any offensive or otherwise unwholesome matter, on any street, yard, enclosure, or open space, except at such places as may be set apart by the local authority or the health officer for that purpose…”
Why don’t we aggressively enforce this law, and just why did we create the Sanitation Courts and how busy are these courts with such cases? I have been in some of these courts in the Greater Accra Region to, ironically, do motor, assault and such other misdemeanour cases and never sanitation-related offences. A check will reveal these ‘special courts’ are inundated with cases other than those for which they were created to deal with.
Why did we repeat this offence and upgrade the punishment for it in 2012 in the Public Health Act so that it now attracts a fine of up to 250 penalty units (a penalty unit = GH¢ 12.00) or up to three years’ imprisonment or both?
Will there be the need for any sanitation exercise that costs the state so much if these laws, including the offences of selling unwholesome foods etc, are enforced?
Let not Cabinet, and certainly not the AG or any serious MP endorse this unconstitutional laziness! Legislating to compel citizens to undertake clean-up exercises most assuredly will not pass the constitutional muster.
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Is it surprising that the Chairman of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee and, by implication, its members are unaware of the existence of a Financial Administration Court to prosecute public officials for financial malfeasance? In a Ghanaian Times story, Mr Kwaku Agyemang-Manu repeated that ignorant excuse the committee has for a long time given the taxpayer. It is unforgivable that this all-critical committee is ignorant of the fact that the Chief Justice has since February 2014 designated nine High Courts as Financial Administration Courts to deal with such cases that come before the PAC.
In fact, there are two in Accra alone. Recently, a member of that committee, who is also a lawyer, George Loh, actually called on the CJ to do what she had done long ago. These courts and a similar one designated in 2009 for the prosecution of corruption cases arising from the Auditor-General’s Report have not recorded a single case as yet. Guess what; their complaints about public officials indicted by the Auditor-General going scot-free because of the absence of this court has been the same since 2003. They blame this on a 2003 law which they themselves amended in 2008 to remove the obstacle (replacing the word “Tribunal” with “Court). Fact is, since 2008 ,any High Court could try indicted officials under the auspices of the AG. So I repeat, let no serious MP endorse this needless lousy duplicity and unconstitutional littering/Sanitation Day law. Trash this trash law!
Give this refuse collection or cleaning job to convicted prisoners if the local assemblies can’t do it well enough for all the money they take. This is certainly another good reason to fast-track a non-custodial sentencing regime in our criminal jurisprudence.
• The writer is an Attorney at Law