Accra, Nov. 19, GNA - A report released by the Joint Monitoring Platform, a research organization, for 2008, indicates that only 11 per cent of Ghanaians have access to improved latrine.

Improved latrines are those that confine faeces safely, separate them from human contact and are not open to flies.

The report indicates that 51 per cent of Ghanaians use shared latrines or public toilets, which are usually not accepted as improved facilities. Addressing school pupils on Thursday during the celebration of this year's World Toilet Day in Accra, Mr. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, condemned instances whereby landlords refused to provide toilets in their houses making tenants to resort to open defecation.

"This negative attitude of some landlords is what compels some tenants to shamelessly defecate at beaches, drains, bushes and other open places," he said.

Mr Afriyie-Ankrah said defecation, even though perceived to be a private matter, had now become a public health issue due to the complications associated with its improper disposal. He appealed to developers to provide hygienic toilets for their households and urged the media to research and disseminate information about special modes of toilets for adaptation and replication. Mr Afriyie-Ankrah expressed dissatisfaction with instances whereby public toilets, which were primarily built to cater for transient population, had now been taken over by communities due to lack of toilets facilities in their houses.

"Given the increasing pressure on these public facilities, the situation is such that they frequently become full, sometimes overflow and become very messy leading to their closure and thereby depriving the users of essential services."

Mrs Ellen Mensah, National Coordinator of School Health Education Programme, Ghana Education Service (GES), appealed to communities which were fond of using school toilets to put a stop to it since they deprived the pupils of these facilities and they also usually messed up their compounds. She said pupils were chosen for this year's celebration since they served as bridges between families, communities and their peers, Mrs Mensah said.

"We believe by celebrating this day with these little ones, they would be able to make an impact on their families and peers on the need to make good use of toilets and avoid indiscriminate defecation and also inculcate the habit of defecating at the right place," she said.

World Toilet Day was declared in 2001 by the World Toilet Organization of the United Nations to highlight the need for all households in the world to have access to hygienic toilets. The Day has been celebrated since. The deputy minister and his entourage used the opportunity to visit some public toilets at Nima in Accra to in order to acquaint themselves with the conditions of public toilets in the area and Ghana as a whole.