The importance of a clean nation and society cannot be overemphasized, and the need for governments to bring innovative policies and regulations aimed at winning the sanitation battle is urgent to say the least.

Goal six (6) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) enjoins countries to ensure access to water and sanitation for all, and this only underscores the importance we need to place on issues of sanitation as a country.

Ghana was recently ranked the 48th country in Africa with the worst progress in sanitation by the UNICEF/WHO Joint Monitoring Team at the AfricanSan+5 International Conference on Sanitation held in Durban, South Africa.

The report, which assessed 51 African countries, also ranked Ghana the 14th out of 15 countries in West Africa with poor sanitation record.

Similarly, Ghana was ranked second after Sudan in Africa for open defecation by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), costing the country some $79million a year, and also posing the greatest danger to the health of the citizenry, with some five million (5m) not having access to any toilet facility and twenty million (20m) not having access to basic improved sanitation.

The rains are here with us, and the latest rains that graced Accra and its environs resulted in flooding, which sparked carious reactions on social media.

The President mentioned he was going to ensure that Accra becomes the cleanest city in Africa, and that only confirms the seriousness of the issue of sanitation for it to have caught the sight of the President.

The hydra-headed questions we keep asking are:

• Are we winning the sanitation battle as a country?
• What has become of the President’s pledge to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa?
• What are our priorities as a nation, and what destiny do we want to carve for ourselves?
• No year passes without us being confronted with the issue of flooding. Where did we lose our thinking cup as a nation?

Whilst we are blindly copying adverse foreign culture and practices, our mentality rather decreases by the day; we refuse to copy their mentality, their cleanliness, the respect and adherence to laws and rules.

Are we committed to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals?, and are our policy makers committed to lead the crusade for its achievement?

Newslinegh.com seeks to awaken all Ghanaians to the posterity that stars us in the face, and the urgency of the need to reinvent the wheel, the urgency for government and policy makers to device innovative and sustainable ways of dealing with the sanitation problems of the country, especially in the urban areas.

This is about the health and welfare of the citizenry and it is a duty imposed by the constitution, and by the sovereign will of the people on our leaders to ensure the health and safety of every Ghanaian.

 

Exclusively Newslinegh