Public toilet operators in Ashaiman fear that the inability for faecal tanker drivers to get a dumping site for their waste is bad grounds to cause cholera outbreak.
Several public toilets in Ashaiman are full but the dumping site at Borteyman, where faecal tanker drivers from Ashaiman, Medina and Dodowa discharge the liquid, had been closed down by the Tema West Assembly.
Due to this, unhygienic liquid from some public and domestic toilets run into some drains in Ashaiman, and with the rains in, residents fear cholera could break.
The situation is set to aggravate as more residents have resorted to open defecation at parts of Community 22, Ashaiman Newtown, Lebanon, Jericho, Roman Down and in bushes along the Tema motorway.
Open defecation in open drains in the Ashaiman Zongo, Asensu, Nii Amui and Valco Flat is a common sight at night and dawn, and this unhealthy development, residents complained, is posing a grave health threat to
businesses and residents.
When contacted on why they have refused to render their services to public and domestic toilet owners in the municipality, Harrison Azaglo, chairman of the Ashaiman City Waste Drivers’ Union, explained to Awake News that “this is where we get our daily bread from and so, why will refuse to work? The Tema West Assembly has stopped us from dumping in the Borteyman treatment plant for over two months now.
“No communication was sent to us and so one fine morning when our tankers had arrived the site, we met a team of armed policemen and some assembly staff from Tema West. We didn’t understand what was going on, and so, we demonstrated and eventually, the police arrested and convicted 78 of us at the Accra Central Police Station.
“We were discharged the next day. And so, you see, we have not refused to work; the Tema West Assembly has prevented us and we fear the health threat in Ashaiman.”
It is a long distance carrying faecal matter through the principal streets of Ashaiman and Accra to the Lavender Hill, Accra, to discharge, in addition to the cost of fuel, which, Mr Azaglo explained, would be too costly for their customers should they factor that into their service charges.
“We paid between Ghc15 and Ghc30 to the assembly, when we discharged at Borteyman. In fact, the Tema West Assembly requested us to contribute for the works on the treatment plant and my union paid Ghc8,000 to support the assembly,” he said, pulling out a letter from the Tema West Assembly officially acknowledging receipt of the
payment.
The Borteyman treatment plant used to be under the management of Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) and during their management, no such development was arose.
After the creation of the Tema West Assembly, the TMA had to release all properties situated in Tema West to manage, not until the ‘baby’ assembly had had a chief executive.
The TMA, therefore, declined any comment on the matter when contacted, “because we are no more the managers of the treatment plant at Borteyman,” Felix Mensah Nii Anang-La, TMA Chief Executive, told a section of the media.
Efforts to get Adwoa Amoako, Tema West MCE, to speak on the matter had been unsuccessful, with her Personal Assistant continuing to give excuses that the MCE had been busy with series of engagements in and outside her office, therefore, was unable to speak on the matter not anytime now.
Story by Umar Sheriff / awakenewsonline.com