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.
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