When the Municipal Chief Executive of the Ga East Municipal Assembly (GEMA), Janet Tulasi Mensah, announced at a town hall meeting that, Saman Saman was back, she meant every word of it.
So far, 60 people have been summoned by GEMA to appear before the Madina Magistrate Court for sanitation offences. None of the cases put before the court has been called, however.
Saman
Saman refers to a legal action taken by the Assembly against people who violate sanitation laws in the municipality. Offenders face the district court for various sanctions according to the magnitude of their offences.
The term saman was commonly used by locals to refer to the word summon. It was a popular term used to describe a house-to-house sanitation inspection exercise carried out by officers from the district assembly in the post-independence period. The officers summoned sanitation law offenders and arraigned them before the district court for a fine or a jail term. The exercise was dreaded by Ghanaians in the past and GEMA is re-enforcing it again.
Some 60 residents at Agbogba were summoned to appear before the Madina magistrate court few months ago for various sanitation offences. However, none of the cases has been tried yet by the court.
“There are so many cases at the Magistrate court that, none of the sanitation cases we put before it has been called yet,” said Mr Charles Asabre, the Municipal Environmental Health Officer at GEMA.
Asabre explained that, the delay in trials is one of the challenges they are facing with regard to the sanitation law enforcement exercise, which began some months ago.
Earlier this year, the Assembly inaugurated the ‘Operation Clean Ga East’ campaign at the Zonal office in Dome. The goal of the operation is to ‘force’ people in the Ga East Municipality (including Abokobi, Agbogba, Dome, Ashongman, and Achimota) to conform to appropriate sanitation practices in accordance with sanitation by-laws.
“We have undertaken behavior change programs but they did not help much,” said Mr. Asabre. “Once we started enforcing the laws, people are beginning to comply.”
Mr. Asabre explained that the aim of the officers in charge of the exercise is not to prosecute anyone but rather to ensure people understand the implication of their actions on the environment and the health of their community.
Sometimes, the officers have been refused entry into homes to do their work mainly because people are not fully aware that resistance is seen as obstruction punishable by law.
“There are people who try to resist us and stop our work,” Mr Asabre said. “Some of them are among the 60 to appear before the district court.”
A fine of 100 penalty units (Ghc 1,200) is the minimum an offender is required to pay as punishment for sanitation offences or he or she may serve a jail term of not more than six months depending on the scale of the offence, according to the Local Government Act.
Residents at Agbogba said that, before sanitation officers came to inspect their homes, they gave notice and so there were no surprises on the day the officers finally came.
“Because we knew they would come, many of us cleaned up our homes and surroundings to avoid any issue with the officers,” said Emelia Manison, a resident at Agbogba. “Some people were not ready for the exercise and they were served notices.”
The notices offenders are served are not the same as being summoned but residents always misinterpret what the notices stand for. The notices tell offenders what their offences are and what they are required to do to remedy the situation within a period of time. The summons is issued when the notices are ignored.
Ms. Manison explained that, the exercise is helpful in curtailing poor sanitation practices by some residents in the Agbogba area.
“This exercise by the Assembly is really timely and very good,” Ms Manison said. “Sometimes in broad daylight, some residents are seen emptying feces into gutters and attempts to stop them have yielded no results.”
Construction of toilet facilities
Many residents in the Agbogba area have no toilet facilities in their homes. In 2015, the World Bank rolled out a five-year sanitation development program targeted at low-income households in every Municipality in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) for the construction of highly subsidised toilet facilities.
Marcelline Nyavi, an environmental health and sanitation officer in charge of the toilet construction explained that, a toilet in every home is mandatory and an important part of the saman saman exercise.
“Ensuring every household has a toilet facility is a significant part of the Operation Clean Ga East campaign,” said Nyavi.
The project is designed to provide poor households in every municipality with a bio-digested toilet at a subsidized rate. The World Bank bears 70 per cent of the total cost and beneficiaries pay 30 per cent.
Once the bio-digesters are installed, it will take about five years before the toilet is full and waste emptied. This makes the facility cost-effective for low-income earners living in compound houses.
According to Nyavi, a number of poor households in the municipality have benefited from the toilet project and many more on the waiting list.
“We have built toilets with bio-digesters for over 1,300 qualified people within the municipality,” he said. “There are about 781 people who have registered but are yet to pay the 30 percent required amount.”
The construction of toilet facilities is on-going and about 100 homes more will have toilet with bio-digesters by the end of April. The cost per toilet is GHc1,100.00 and that is 30 per cent of the actual cost. Households who seek to have their existing toilets (latrines) converted to bio-digesters can benefit from the program too. However, some low-income households in Agbogba are unable to readily afford the minimum cost.
Anyele Nai, a resident of Agboba, explained that the main thing the officers spoke about when they visited her home was the state of their toilet, which is a pit latrine.
The cost of the bio-digester, though subsidized, remains a barrier to members of her household.
“It is so difficult to get members of my house to contribute to anything,” Ms. Nai said.
There is an arrangement for poorer households who are unable to pay the required GHc1, 100 upfront to pay in installments over a period of one year. GEMA is not only demanding compliance with by-laws under this operation but also creating the enabling conditions for residents to have access to facilities needed as required by law.
Rubbish Collection
Beyond the provision of improved and affordable toilet facilities for residents, rubbish collection companies have been contracted to deal with household wastes in the Municipality.
Ga East is divided into zones (first class, second class, and third class) and residents within these zones are required to register with waste collection companies and pay service fees, according to their financial capacities. A fee of GHc10.00 is the lowest monthly charge a resident pays, according to the zones they belong to, leaving no one with any excuse not to dispose waste properly.
“It is required of every home to have a waste bin and register with a waste company,” Nyavi said. “There is a central waste container but that is not for the service of entire communities; residents must be responsible for the wastes they generate and we ensure that.”
Challenges
The Clean Ga East operation is not always smooth as explained by Emmanuel Wiafe, the officer leading the sanitation inspection. There are communities that are notorious for violence and usually before any inspection exercise is carried out there, community entry strategies are used to gain access and cooperation of residents.
“Sometimes you enter a community and you are not given any chance to do your work because the residents do not know you,” he said. “You have to fall on somebody you know like the Assembly member in the area before you can gain access.”
According to Mr. Asabre, the Municipal Environmental Health Officer, GEMA, lack of logistics and personnel is one of the challenges they face in carrying out their duties. This makes the work difficult and limits the number of operations they can complete in a day.
Mr. Asabre explained, however, that there will be a need for sanitation courts where sanitation cases will be tried without delay. That way, saman saman will be effective and taken seriously.
Source: Fidel Tetteh/Department of Communication Studies, University of Ghana