National Sanitation Day: The Apathy at Takoradi Market Circle

Abstract

The National Sanitation Day (NSD) was instituted by the Minister responsible for the Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) on the 1^st of November, 2014. This initiative was engendered by the cholera outbreak in 2014 which took the lives of many a Ghanaian. Its serious nature convinced the Legislature to pass a law making it mandatory for every citizen to take part in the sanitation exercise schedule for the first Saturday of every month.

The programme initially caught up with the citizenry attracting the participation of high profile personalities including the President and the Asantehene. But as the days went by, participation dwindled drastically, culminating into this research to find out why the apathy.

The study was conducted using questionnaire and interview to collect data for the reseach as to why the people at the city centre were apathetic to the NSD programme. One hundred and nineteen (119) traders and twenty-seven (27) City Guards stationed at the city centre of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis responded to the questionnaire.

The research actually does show that measures put to the ground contributed to the apathy. If vehicles could not move; and those who managed to get to the city centre are forced to enter into filthy drains to work regardless of  their personal programmes and their costume; failure resulting into being put behind bars until the exercise is over, leaves much to be desired and definitely will let people exhibit apathetic behaviour.

Every body thinks that the way forward is for the Metropolitan Assembly to use the money expended each month, to employ permanent staff to deal with the cleaning up of the environment, so that apathy or otherwise, the community will be sanitised for the health of the people to be improved and the outbreak of diseases, ameliorated if not eradicated.

Keywords: Sanitation, Sanitary Conditions, Hygienic, , Liquid Waste, Sanitary Engineering, National Sanitation Day.