Nana Kankan Manya, Asafoatse (Sub-chief) of Adarkwa in the Suhum Municipality, has said regular efforts in clean-up exercises are important to help eradicate diseases, such as cholera, malaria and typhoid from the society.

He urged the Suhum Municipal Assembly, the Directorate of Health Service and the Zoomlion Company to ensure the strict enforcement of sanitation laws in the society.

“We need to ensure that those who destroy the environment through open defaecation do not go unpunished”, he said.

Nana Manya was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency shortly after handing over a GH¢800.00 improved toilet facility to the Methodist Day Care Centre at Adarkwa.

Mr Emmanuel Danso, the head teacher, said the school provided 150 blocks and three roofing sheets, while the sub-chief offered cement, door, nails, WC-Seater and dug the manhole.

Nana Manya said for over 10 years, the 90 pupils of the school and their teachers did not have toilet facility, the children “soiled themselves” on their way home, while the teachers defecated under cocoa trees.

Nana Manya observed that there was also the tendency on the part of landlords to convert household toilets into living rooms, thereby denying tenants access to toilets in their homes and this is compounding the problem of open defaecation.

He urged the municipal assembly to do well to bring governance to the citizenry and to ascertain at first hand, information on what was happening at the local level, know the problems of the people and to find lasting solutions to them.