FROM EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE, FUMESUA, ASHANTI REGION
P.V. Obeng delivering the keynote address |
The Senior Presidential
Advisor, Paul Victor Obeng, yesterday, August 14, 2013 opened Ghana’s longest
running water, sanitation and hygiene conference at Fumesua, near Kumasi in the
Ashanti Region, with a call on the about 140 participants to focus
on building new coalitions of those who are willing to change the country’s
fortunes.
To
him, such action will enable appreciation of Ghana’s limitations, codify the
country’s sanitation challenges and apply appropriate technologies to improve
access to sanitation services.
He therefore called on the stakeholders to develop enforceable
standards for achieving the 54 per cent coverage in sanitation, saying that the
country had under-performed in that sector due to the lack of urgency in the implementation
of policies.
“We all know we have underperformed in the sanitation
sector, so whatever needs to be done should be done with a certain level of urgency
in order to recover lost time,” the Presidential Advisor emphasised.
“We need a complete
passionate evaluation of what has been done, who did what and who has not done
what, to be used as building blocks for scaling up performance,” he said.
Mr. P. V. Obeng admonished the participants to institute a
new partnership in public education and dissemination, to sensitize the public
on the new ways that waste should be handled.
For her part, Prof. Esi Awuah, Vice Chancellor,
University of Energy and Natural Resources, who delivered the theme address, stated
that although private sector participation in the sanitation sector has
increased, there has not been a corresponding progress as expected, due to bribery,
corruption, nepotism and tribalism, which have caused the award of contracts to
incompetent people in the sector.
The Vice Chancellor expressed worry that countries were
becoming dependent on Development Partners (DPs) for service delivery in the
sector, since governments have not been very proactive because they have low
knowledge of sanitation.
To help change that she suggested the scaling up of best
sanitation practices including waste sorting and making use of all waste
generated.
Chair
for the opening, Dr. Doris Yaa Dartey, Board Chair of the Graphic Communications
Group commended CONIWAS for the moderate achievements made so far through its
work and past Mole conferences but cautioned participants that the sanitation
crisis of yester years was still the reality today.
In
her acceptance speech, Dr. Dartey urged Ghanaians to take management of the
waste generated by every individual very seriously because sanitation is at the
heart of the country’s development.
She
cautioned the participants drawn from communities, civil society organizations,
academia, government and development partners among others, to be careful that
the sanitation crisis does not become a norm, saying “when crisis pertains for
a long time it becomes the norm.”
When he took his turn, Hon. Akwasi Oppong-Fosu, Minister
for Local Government and Rural Development, said the lack of enforcement of
laws was one of the debilitating factors against sanitation delivery in Ghana, and
that the system is fostered through the politicization of issues in Ghana.
“People break the law and when they are apprehended,
they quickly assume political tags of foot-soldiers and opposition leaders, so
they can escape prosecution,” the minister stated.
He warned that unless the indiscipline is rooted out, no
laws can be enforced in the country.
“Sanitation-related diseases do not know any political
boundaries so we need to deal with the canker of indiscipline in the sector as
well as deal with the politicization of issues so that we can enforce policies
and laws in Ghana,” Hon. Oppong-Fosu stressed.
Group picture of participants |
Mr.
Farouk Braimah, the CONIWAS Chair and the Ashanti Regional Minister earlier
took turns to welcome participants to the conference and to the region respectively,
while short statements were made by the Anik Desmeules-Raggio, Development Partners in Ghana Lead, Mr.
Lenason Naa Demedeme, Acting Director, Environmental Health Sanitation
Directorate, Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and Mr. Fred
Addae, Director Water, Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing.
The
dignitaries led by Mr. P. V. Obeng later opened the conference exhibition,
which is a key side event of the Mole series.
Mr.
P. V. Obeng also earlier launched a new Think Tank for Sanitation in Africa
which currently has four member countries comprising Ghana, Cameroon, Benin and
Burkina Faso.
The conference
has so far registered over 140 participants from communities, civil society
organizations, academia, government and development partners among others.
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