Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources commissions 38 ultra modern toilet facilities within Greater Kumasi.
The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Freda Akosua Prempeh on Thursday October 12, 2023, commissioned 38 out of 129 ultra modern toilet facilities within eight Assemblies in the Greater Kumasi in the Ashanti region.
The project is funded by the World Bank with GKMA under the Ministry for Sanitation and Water Resources been the implementation body.
In all thirteen schools and health care institutions benefited from the 38 ultra modern facilities.
They include Ejisu Islamic Primay and JHS 11-seater sanitation facility,
Bonwire SHS 15-seater sanitation facility,
Ejisu Model School 15-seater sanitation facility,
Fumesua M/A Primary and JHS 11-seater sanitation facility,
Others are Kwaso Health Center 5-seater sanitation facility, Bantama Presby Cluster of Schools 15-seater sanitation facility,
Bantama Presby Cluster of Schools KG 5-seater,
Nasariya Islamic School 9-seater sanitation facility,
The rest are Asokore Mampong M/A JHS, A and B 11-seater sanitation facility,
Sepe Timpom KG Block 11-seater sanitation facility,
Sepe Timpom School JHS 11-seater sanitation facility,
Apiadu RC Primary JHS 11-seater sanitation facility,11-seater sanitation facility, among others.
Implementers of the project have since 2021 continued to pursue an agenda which is targeted at constructing a total of 129 modern toilets to about 90 selected schools and healthcare facilities in eight assemblies in order to provide relief for about 200,000 school children, teachers, patients and other workers.
Commissioning the projects, the Minster for Sanitation and Water Resources Hon Freda Akosua Prempeh who also doubles as the Member of Parliament for Tano North Constituency on the ticket of the ruling New Patriotic Party disclosed that the Greater Accra Metropolitan Assembly (GAMA) project alone has provided close to 600 of such toilets between 2016 and 2023 and they are being used on daily basis.
She however called on the beneficiaries to adopt culture of maintenance so as to prolong the longevity of the facilities.
The Minister stressed the need for the beneficiary schools and associated parents and children to appreciate the value of the facilities in the health and educational life of the children in particular and to solicit support from all to ensure that the toilets are well maintained.
It is one thing providing the beautiful facilities as we see here and another thing to maintain them so that the facilities will serve their designed lifespan.
According to her, there are so many schools in the country, where government and partners have provided decent toilet facilities before and yet just a few years or even months after, they are abandoned for the children to return to the bush and other unorthodox places to defecate.
We are here today to use these new toilet facilities as a point of contact to declare that we have broken that spirit called “poor maintenance culture” from our mentality”, she said.
She indicated that should the toilets fail as a result of poor culture of maintenance, Ghana will risk losing out of all the other components of the GKMA project if the toilets which include provision of 30,000 household toilets, extension of piped water supply to 5,000 households, rehabilitation and expansion of the Asafo Sewerage System to connect more houses and capacity development of sanitation and water supply institutions.
The Minister for Water and Sanitation announced that the government of Ghana is proud with the funding and technical support from the World Bank.
She added that officials of World Bank are in to hold discussions with the Ministry and helping it with more and better technical ideas to ensure that the project succeeds.
“It is our belief that as government, that we will all play our part so that the statement will be clear enough at the end of 2024 when the project is expected to end, that the government will not seat to make a justification for more support to scale up the project to other parts of the region and to other regions.”
Speaking on behalf of the Ashanti Regional Director of Education, Mr. Anful Kingsley thanked the World Bank for the numerous support offered through the project.
He therefore called on Ghanaians to support the initiative.
In her brief address, the World Bank Practice Manager for water in West and Central Africa, Mrs Anna Cestari said the World Bank is committed to support Ghana government to progress and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs6) which target among others, portable drinking water, elimination of open defication and clean environment.
Minister for Sanitation. Hon Freda Akosua Prempeh, Project Coordinator Ing. George Assiedu, World Bank rep Ms Anna Cestari and other scenes from the program.
