Banso residents call for improvement in sanitary conditions

Asante Akyem South District in the Ashanti Region may not meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on sanitation if drastic measures are not taken to improve the situation, particularly with regard to the provision of toilet facilities.

Banso a town in the district, with a population of about 4,000 people, has only one public toilet facility.

SDG goal six

Goal Six of the SDGs calls for, “Ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”.

Banso has two toilet facilities but one is no more in use while the other is in a poor state.

At the moment, about 3,000 inhabitants of the town and surrounding communities use the remaining dilapidated facility, while the rest of the population of about 1000 make use of household toilets.

In separate interviews with the Daily Graphic, the assembly members for the Banso East and Banso West Electoral Areas, Mr Hubert Yeboah and Mr Samuel K. Owusu, respectively, have appealed to the government to help save the situation.

Renovation

They called for the immediate renovation of the facility in use and the construction of additional public toilets to ease the difficulties the people were going through.

According to them, providing new public toilet facilities for the town would either reduce or eliminate open defecation in the area in addition to helping to curb the incidence of cholera outbreaks.

The assembly members further appealed to the Bansohene, Nana Kyei Ababio, and his sub-chiefs to dialogue with the government through the district assembly for improvements for the town.

According to UNICEF, one in every five Ghanaians has no access to a toilet facility. This, it said, was contributing to open defecation with over 70 per cent of open defecation cases taking place in the northern part of the country.