Adenta citizens prefer keep fit exercises to talk on environment

Adenta (Greater Accra), 26th April ?99 ?

 The people of Adenta on Saturday failed to turn up at a durbar organized to create awareness on the need to safeguard the environment.

Children formed the majority of those who turned up for the durbar organised by Environmental Concerns Centre of Ghana (ECCG), an NGO, as officials made frantic efforts to get more people to attend.

Many however preferred their Saturday morning keep-fit exercises and other social engagements to another lecture on the environment.

The durbar, sponsorship of the European Union through PACIPE- Ghana, A French NGO, however went on and was preceded by communal labour. It was held under the theme "Environmental Cleanliness-Community Participatory Concept".

Mr Baffour Ayeh-Kwapong, Director of Ako Waste Limited, a waste management

company who spoke on "Effective Environmental Practices - A Check on Communicable Diseases", called on all Ghanaians to make issues relating to the environment "every one's concern".

He asked the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) to re-engage sanitary inspectors in Tema and Accra to ensure that residents maintain sound environmental practices.

"As a nation, we need to tackle environmental issues with all the seriousness it deserves, by enforcing all the existing laws", he said.

Dr Liberty King, a medical consultant who spoke on "Environmental Cleanliness and Community Hygiene - Problems and Solutions", said a survey carried out by TMA revealed that water from stand-pipes sometimes contain faecal matter.

"This situation, the studies showed, was because some pipe lines are laid in gutters and unhygienic areas, leading to the contamination of the treated water with faecal matter with a little bursting of the line."

He called on all residents to ensure strict hygienic practices to maintain a healthy body at all times.

Mr Franklin W. K. Aheto, Member of Parliament for Ashaiman, called on residents to ensure that they build toilet facilities in their houses to prevent residents from defecating indiscriminately.

"You should also bear in mind that public toilet facilities are meant for strangers ... and not for residents as has become the norm", he added.