Cape Coast assembly bans unhealthy food vendors

Cape Coast, Oct 24, GNA - the Environmental Health Unit of the Cape Coast Municipal Assembly has banned Eighty-one food vendors suffering from typhoid and 34 from tuberculosis until they have been fully treated. Majority of them are women.

Their ailments were detected during screening exercises conducted on about 1,000 food sellers in the municipality by the unit from January and they are being monitored to ensure that they do not flout the ban. The Municipal Environmental Health Officer, Nana Poku, who spoke to newsmen at Cape Coast on Tuesday, said t was a criminal offence for people with infectious diseases to sell food. He said people suffering from dysentery and skin diseases should also not sell food.

Nana Poku said officers of the unit visit the homes of the banned vendors every three days to ascertain that they have stopped selling and are taking the required treatment after which they would be allowed to sell again.

On sanitation, he expressed worry that although the assembly had arranged with the Judicial Service to allot one day in a week to prosecute sanitation offences, this was not being followed. He said the situation was "hampering the interest" of officers of the unit in compiling such cases for trial. The unit has about 35 cases including offences like indiscriminate disposal of solid and liquid waste, awaiting prosecution. He expressed the wish that the Polluter Pays System under which households are registered and they pay for the disposal of the refuse they generate could be adopted in the municipality to enhance waste management and environmental cleanliness.

Earlier officials of the assembly in conjunction with the Zoomlion Company had met with representatives of the various branches of the drivers unions to brainstorm about the launch of a sanitation programme for the lorry stations.

The programme is to help ensure that the lorry stations are kept clean since visitors to Ghana 2008 are expected to visit tourist sites in the municipality.