GOOD SANITATION IS RESPONSIBILITY OF ALL — DCE (PAGE 40)

THE District Chief Executive (DCE) for Asutifi, Mr Opoku Peprah, has observed that it is the responsibility of individual citizens, communities, private sector enterprises, non-governmental organisations and institutions of government to ensure good sanitation at all times, in order to avoid contracting communicable diseases.
He stressed that proper sanitation was important for the good health of the people, adding that improper waste disposal by one individual could affect an entire community.
“All these sectors, therefore, have an essential role to play in maintaining a high standard of environmental sanitation to complement the efforts of government and the district assemblies in ensuring a healthy citizenry,” the DCE said.
Mr Peprah made the observation during the inauguration and handing over ceremony of aqua privy sanitation facilities for four communities in the Asutifi District at Kenyasi Number One in the Brong Ahafo Region.
The beneficiary communities were Hwidiem, Kenyasi Number One, Ntotroso and Kenyasi Number Two.
Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL) funded the projects at a total cost of $130,000, in response to a request by the traditional authorities of the respective traditional areas and the district assembly.
The DCE noted that the inauguration of the facilities could not have come at a more opportune time than now, as the world was celebrating the 2008 sanitation year.
“We must all gear up our energies to provide good and healthy sanitation since a healthy people make a healthy nation,” he added.
Mr Peprah, however, stated that the provision of those facilities would not be beneficial to the people if the projects were not well maintained by those who would be entrusted with the responsibility to do so, in order to ensure their longer life span.
He disclosed that the assembly had drawn up a programme to provide more of such facilities for other areas in the district.
In a speech read on his behalf, the External Affairs Manager of NGGL, Mr Randy Barnes, emphasised that his company remained genuinely committed to the sustainable development of the Ahafo Community that was why it continued to put in resources towards the improvement in the quality of the life of the people in the various communities.
According to Mr Barnes, a more concrete expression of that commitment was the setting aside of $1 per ounce of gold sold and one per cent of the company’s net profit, which had been deposited in a fund known as the “Newmont Ahafo Development Foundation.”