Under a two-year European Union/UNICEF supported project to improve sanitation in the districts, 238 communities in 10 districts of the Northern Region are to be provided with improved sanitation facilities to enhance their health status and stop open defecation.
The beneficiary communities include the: Tolon/Kumbungu, Savelugu/Nanton, Yendi, Karaga, Kpandi, Nanumba North, Gushiegu, Zabzugu/Tatale, East and Central Gonja Districts.
Mr. Steven Adongo, Northern Regional Environmental Officer said this during the closing of a training programme for 60 sanitation guards, drawn from four districts in the Region, in Tamale on Friday.
The training programme was collaborated between Zoomlion Ghana Limited and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), to assist Environmental Health Officers (EHOs), in the conduct of environmental health inspections and also equip them with the requisite skills for public education and law enforcement.
They sanitation guards were also taken through the techniques for carrying out and giving health promotion and education in the communities, lorry parks, markets and schools, and how to deal with statutory nuisances.
Mr. Adongo said apart from Tamale, the regional capital that had some good sanitation facilities, the rest of the districts lacked proper sanitation facilities, and this made them to openly and indiscriminately defecate around.
He said waste collection in the region was below 30 percent and hoped that the problem would improve when Zoomlion begins the re-cycling of waste next year.
Mr. Samuel Allotey, Programme Officer at the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the MLGRD, called on environmental health officers and sanitation guards, to intensify public education and ensure the enforcement and compliance of the bye laws of the district assemblies.
He also called on the sanitation officers to draw up pragmatic plans and programmes to help solve sanitation problems in their respective districts.
Mr. Allotey cautioned the EHOs not to use the sanitation guards for purposes for which they were not engaged, adding that: "As sanitation guards, bear in mind that by your training, you are not to go on inspections alone, and we do not expect to see two trained environmental health officers conduct inspections without sanitation guards".
He also entreated the EHOs and the district supervisors of Zoomlion to work as a team with a common understanding, and draw up daily and weekly schedules for the sanitation guards, and document all their activities.
Mr. Allotey asked the sanitation guards not to be complacent with their present situation, and explained that their engagement was to ensure that after they had worked in the sector for some time, and had developed an interest they would be able to avail themselves for upgrading into the school of hygiene to become officers.
Mr. Stephen Sumani Nayina, Northern Regional Minister, noted that there was a direct correlation between bad sanitation and disease, and said it was therefore not surprising that in 2007 for example, diarrhea was responsible for about 425,250 outpatient deaths in Ghana, making it the fifth most common mortal aliment in the country.
He said on the reverse, better sanitation practices improved the economic well being of the individual and the country, since it results in reduction in medical costs, which allows for investment in areas such as education and agriculture.