Mr. Gideon Amegbor, an Environmental Assistant Health Officer at the Ho Municipal Assembly, has said 5,000 households within the Municipality lacked toilet facilities.

He described the situation as very worrying and that the lack of the facilities was making it difficult to address challenges of open defecation.

Mr. Amegbor said this in an interview with Ghana News Agency on World Toilet Day in Ho, which is celebrated on Nov.19, every year.

He said it was imperative for every household and institutions to have improved toilet facilities to avoid open defecation to promote good health and prosperity because “a healthy nation is a prosperous nation".

Mr. Amegbor said his office was currently undertaking an “urban sanitation programme" where officers visited homes to sensitize people on the importance and use of improved household toilet facilities.

He said the Municipal Assembly had given a four month ultimatum, which began from September, to all households and institutions without toilet facilities to fix them.

Mr. Amegbor said any institution or household that failed to comply with the directive, which would expire in January, 2019 would be prosecuted.

Meanwhile, Mrs Stella Kumedzro, Environmental Health Analyst, Volta Regional Environmental Office, noted that though the Region was trying to ensure that all communities were clean, only 14 per cent of households had latrines and hand washing facilities.

She said out of the 3,646 households in the Region, a total of 2,818 were targeted for the implementation of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programme but only 416 had been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF).

This year's World Toilet Day is on the theme, “When Nature Calls", and said to be about taking action to ensure that everyone has a safe toilet by 2030 as part of Sustainable Development Goal six-sanitation and water.