Help make National Sanitation Day a success — Speaker

The Speaker of Parliament, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, has said it is the responsibility of every Ghanaian to help make the  National Sanitation Day (NSD) a success.

He said it was out of order for the Ministry of Local Government to come to the various regions to help them clean their environment every first Saturday of the month but added that such an initiative was a show of leadership and responsibility that citizens needed to emulate.

Mr Adjaho made these remarks when a Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Isaac Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, paid a courtesy call on him in Accra last Wednesday.

The visit was to formally inform him about the fifth edition of the NSD exercise on Saturday, March 7, 2015, which would be centred in the Volta Region.

It was also to invite him to join members of the ministry as well as the people of the Volta Region to successfully mark the NSD and create awareness of the need to keep the environment clean.

NSD

The NSD was launched in October 2014 to raise awareness and instil in citizens the habit of constantly cleaning their environment to prevent illnesses such as cholera and other non-communicable diseases.

Since then, the ministry has embarked on regional tours in the country to mark the NSD and to also take the concept of decentralisation to the doorstep of the people.

The first and second editions of the NSD were held in Accra. Kumasi and Tamale respectively hosted the third and fourth editions with a successful turnout of prominent people, including the President, Mr John Dramani Mahama; the Vice President, Mr Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur; the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II; the Regent of Dagbon, Kampapuya Naa Abdulai Yakubu Andani, and the Regent of Tamale, Gulkpe-Na Alhaji Abdulai Ziblim.

Support

Mr Adjaho said the NSD was a good initiative that needed to be embraced by every citizen in the country. He added, “If you are lagging somewhere and somebody comes to prompt you to remind you of your responsibility, it is not an offence.”

He expressed his commitment to join the ministry in marking the NSD in the hope that after the rotation process in all the regions was over, the citizens would make it a collective responsibility to keep their environment clean.

Support commendable

Mr Vanderpuye, in his remarks, lauded the commitment of the Speaker of Parliament and urged the general public to come out in their numbers and support the national exercise.