Stench from gutters at Lapaz, danger to health – Residents

Residents in the Accra suburbs of Lapaz and Nii Boiman have expressed concern about consistent stench that had engulfed their environment which could lead to an epidemic.Most alarming was how cooked food was being sold to the public from positions very close to the stench exuding gutters with the potential outbreak of environmental related diseases such as cholera and typhoid.Mr Emmanuel Tei, a resident of Mouldkrom, near Lapaza expressed this sentiment in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), after a clean-up exercise in the area organised by Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources to commemorate the World Cleanup Day.The event was on the theme: 'Clean, Safety Dispose for Safer Communities.'Mr Tei blamed the Osu, Tabora and Alhaji trotro operators who have turned the roads in the area into stations.'We are currently confronted with a grave sanitation problem because large trotro operators sleep daily and dump the refuse into the drains, littering of streets, leading to environmental po llution,' he stated.He advised the commercial drivers to desist from such practices, which creates health problems to community members and called on the environmental health officers of the Okaikwei North Municipal Assembly to raise environmental consciousness among the people in the area, especially the trotro operators.Mr Boniface Ashalley, the Municipal environmental Health Officer of the Assembly, when contacted, he said when it comes to the issue of cleaning the gutters and drains, many people were prepared to help hence the issuance of summons to the recalcitrant ones among them.He stressed the need for community members to attach special importance to environmental sanitation to prevent disease outbreaks.'There is a limit to the efforts of the authorities. The biggest challenge rested on the people themselves to adopt a positive attitude towards sanitation issues in the communities,' he stated.He said hygiene education was about helping people to understand what causes some of their health p roblems and called for vigorous education to change the behaviours of the people.Mr Nii Ottoo Lartey, Assemblyman for Nii Boiman Electoral Area, told the GNA that the low communal spirit was due to lack of effective communication among the people.Source: Ghana News Agency