Ashanti Region warms up for third sanitation day

All is set for the Third National Sanitation Day (NSD) clean-up exercise, scheduled to take place in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional Capital and its environs, tomorrow Saturday, January 3.

The event which is set to come on every first Saturday of the month, is aimed at instilling the attitude and culture of clean-up exercises in Ghanaians, which will go a long way to check environmental degradation.

This edition of the NSD would honour the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu the Second. About 6,000 National Service Personnel would be deployed in Kumasi and other parts of the Region to support the exercise.

The exercise which will be carried out throughout the country every month, is expected to promote environmental and public health.

Mr Julius Debrah, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, his two deputies, Mr Emmanuel Kwadwo Agyekum and Mr Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuije and some other directors of the Ministry are all present in Kumasi to partake in the exercise.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Debrah said Ghana was rated among the 10 dirtiest countries in terms of sanitation control by the United Nations, and that had informed the Ministry's decision to institute the NSD exercise.

Mr Debrah said the Ministry was coming up with bye-laws that would make it compulsory for every Ghanaian to participate in the NSD exercise.

He said when finalized, it would be adopted by all Assemblies, and passed as a resolution to make it obligatory for every citizen to take part in the exercise, so that citizens, communities, entities or organizations that did not participate, would be sanctioned.

The Minister said even though some of the laws under the proposed model existed, they were too old and needed to be amended to take care of present situations.

"Most of the punishments prescribed are nothing to write home about, the fines are very old and are very minimal."

The NSD was launched on September 17, 2014 at the Ghana International Trade Fair Centre in Accra.