IT was estimated in 2008 by the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that more than 1.6 billion people were waiting to have access to improved sanitation.
These people were waiting to have access to sanitary and environmentally-friendly toilets, which are non-existent. The situation is more prevalent in developing countries, particularly West Africa.
In Tamale, it is not clear how many people are waiting to have access to toilets, but the sad truth is that more and more people are compelled to explore new grounds to attend to the call of nature.
It is obvious that Tamale is no more a small town with many bushy areas that made it possible for residents to practise ‘free range’. It is now a sprawling city.
Today, more and more settlements are emerging. Many houses are being built on a regular basis and yet, only a few of these can boast of a toilet. Most houses are without a toilet and tenants have to roam round the community looking for places to defecate.
A lot of residents rely on public toilets, which is counter-productive as people have to walk long distances to access such toilets and again spend time queuing and waiting for their turn.
The state of public toilets is even an eyesore. Most of them are poorly-ventilated, smelly and unhygienic and this discourages sanitary-conscious citizens from using such facilities.
What happens, then, if people cannot find a place to ease themselves? They begin looking for alternatives, some of which could pose a danger to their health and that of others.
In January this year, the UN’s IRIN news network reported that in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, the lack of adequate sanitation facilities had led to the increased use of polythene bags – which they christened ‘flying toilets’ – for human waste disposal.
According to the report, the situation was worse in slums where infrastructure was very basic, such as poor drainage systems.
The health hazards of such a phenomenon are not far-fetched. According to the Director of Public Health in the Northern Region, Dr Jacob Mahama, when faeces are disposed of improperly, they tend to pollute water sources and this increases the likelihood of disease infections.
He also explained that in the dry season, the possibility of people consuming faeces was on the high due to the winds and the activities of flies, especially because some food vendors left their food items uncovered.
One may wonder if authorities of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) are waiting for Tamale to be like Kampala (that is, if it isn’t already) before they take serious action.
There are regulations regarding the construction of residential buildings in every town in Ghana and Tamale is not an exception.
One of the regulations requires the landlord/ladies to provide toilets in their homes, but how many people comply with this directive.
So what has the assembly authorities done to ensure that this directive is followed? I asked the Head of the Waste Management Department of the TaMA, Mr Sampson Akwettey.
“What happens is that, when people bring their building plans for approval, they allocate areas for toilets, but after construction, they convert these places into rooms for other purposes”.
He said people converted these proposed toilets to living places, kitchens and stores, thus depriving the tenants of a place to ease themselves.
It is important to note also that not all landlords draw building plans for their houses and only a few of those who do so bother to send their plans to the assembly for approval to acquire a building permit. Again, not all areas have public toilets.
So usually, more needs to be done to ensure that people have toilets in their homes to prevent them from using unorthodox means when easing themselves.
According to Mr Akwettey, even though the assembly is unable to enforce these building directives, it had taken measures to promote the construction of household latrines in the metropolis.
He said under the 2nd Urban Environmental Sanitation Project, the assembly had helped home owners in the metropolis to construct more than 1600 household latrines.
“We provided them with financial assistance, alongside some technical directions to enable them to construct standard latrines,” Mr Akwettey mentioned.
He said the project had since folded up and efforts are being made to secure more funding to continue with this form of assistance.
The sanitation officer also mentioned that some private organisations were also helping to construct technologically-improved latrines for households at a less expensive cost.
He said the assembly was equally considering ways of making budgetary allocations to fund the provision of household latrines, but admitted that such an endeavour was costly.
If indeed the assembly has undertaken all these measures, as the sanitation officer has outlined, and still many people in Tamale are in search of a place of convenience, then it implies that a lot more needs to be done to salvage Tamale from turning into a city plagued with indiscriminate disposal of human waste.
The Northern Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr Iddrisu Abu, suggested the strengthening of the building inspectorate and the environment and sanitation units of the assembly.
He said it was regrettable that such a unit such as the building inspectorate had just a single staff, “who has not got a vehicle or any significant assistance to do his job”.
To curb the phenomenon where people convert toilets to rooms, Mr Abu recommended that the assembly shies away from giving full permits to landlords/ladies, unless they stick to the approved building plans during construction, adding that this would ensure that proposed latrines are not converted into other rooms.
“If you give them the full building permits, then they can go ahead and do otherwise, after all they have the permits,” he stated, adding that provisional permits should be given to allow the prospective builders to commence their projects, while awaiting the full permit.
The EPA director further entreated the TaMA to mainstream health, environment and sanitation issues into its Medium-term development plans so that it could budget for these projects and proceed to implement them.
In a nutshell, it is clear that if the TaMA fails to take stringent measures to promote the construction of latrines in all households in Tamale, a major catastrophe awaits the city.
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