Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly whips the owners

Regional news for Friday, November 13, 2020

Source: GNA

2020-11-13

The Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly has prosecuted 11 landowners this year in various courts for disobeying sanitation statutes.

The highest number of violations attracted three penalty points each and were charged with GHC 800.00 and GHC 500.00 with violations ranging from not providing domestic toilets, creating continuous stagnant sewage, and inability to provide household trash cans.

Mr Evans Bornaa, Municipal Environmental Health Officer (MEHO), made this known to the Ghana News Agency at the Bolgatanga truck station after his team together with Zoomlion Ghana conducted a clean-up exercise in the new Bolgatanga market.

The exercise, according to Mr. Kojo Upon Njabore, Regional Public Works Officer, Zoomlion, said it was part of the activities leading up to the third phase of disinfection of markets and public places to curb the COVID-19 pandemic started by the Ministry of Local Government Services and Rural Development (MLGSRD).

Mr. Bornaa reiterated the commitment of the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly and its team to ensure that sanitation statutes are strictly adhered to to keep municipalities clean.

The Environmental Health Officer said that the emergence of COVID 19 also caused the slowdown in the implementation of the statutes and the prosecution rate and indicated that a house-to-house sensitization was being carried out to advise the public to desist from acts that would endanger environment.

“Everyone has a responsibility to be ambassadors for sanitation,” emphasized Mr. Bornaa, adding that in the Bolgatanga municipality, it was part of their statutes to accuse anyone who was seen defecating outside or indiscriminately littering.

The 1992 constitution obliges all citizens to have a responsibility to the welfare of the environment and to protect and safeguard it. The 2010 environmental and sanitation policy requires all Ghanaians to keep the environment clean and safe, and therefore all residents of any community must help enforce sanitation laws by preventing the creation of mosquito breeding sites.

The Criminal Offenses Act of 1960, Law 29, section 296-7, clarifies that no one has the right to shit in a plastic container or bag and throw it away indiscriminately, or to sweep the garbage from a house and throw it anywhere and, therefore Therefore, such acts are criminal and therefore the guilty will be tried in court.

Meanwhile, the Local Government Act of 2016, Act 936 directs various MMDAs to create local statutes to care for the environment and the Public Health Act of 2012, section 56, prohibits the discriminatory dumping of waste in various workplaces.