Adamsu (B/R), July 5, GNA – Opinion leaders at Adamsu, a farming community in the Jaman South Municipality of the Bono Region, have set up a Community Watchdog Committee to control rising Open Defecation (OD) in the area.
During a visit, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) gathered that some residents, mostly youth, had turned the local Presbyterian Primary School to a place of convenience, messing up the classrooms.
The situation, according to Mr Atta Agyapong, the Assemblyman for Adamsu Newtown, was so bad that school children had to clean up the mess every morning before academic work could begin.
In an interview with the GNA, Mr Agyapong said some of the residents also defecated in polythene bags, worsening the situation in the area, saying if the issue was not tackled it could lead to an outbreak of cholera as the rains set in.
He attributed the practice partly to inadequate toilets in the town, saying there was only a communal toilet in the town that served more than 7,000 people.
Mr Agyapong said the people had made persistent appeals to the Municipal Assembly to no avail because the Assembly had shifted attention from constructing communal toilets to the provision of household ones.
That notwithstanding, he said residents had no justification to defecate openly, and warned that anyone caught defecating openly would not be spared.
Mr Agyapong, therefore, appealed to non-governmental and charitable organisations, natives living abroad, philanthropists and corporate organisations to support the town as the opinion leaders intensify efforts to curtail the menace.
He also appealed for additional classrooms for the Adamsu Presbyterian JHS ‘A’, saying because of the deplorable condition of the school, the community had moved the JHS students to join the Presbyterian JHS ‘B’, creating congestion in the classrooms.
The Assemblyman said the classrooms of the JHS ‘B’ currently contained between 80-90 students, instead of 45 students in a class, thereby affecting effective teaching and learning.
Source: Ghana News Agency
