Poor Sanitation Problem Facing Ghana

Poor sanitation costs the country $290 million each year, the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate (EHSD) of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) has said.

The amount represents 1.6 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
According to a study conducted by the directorate, open defecation costs the country $79 million per year, while premature death from poor water, sanitation and hygiene costs the taxpayer $215 million.
An official of the EHSD, Mr Kweku Quansah, told participants at a four-day workshop organised by Plan Ghana in Accra that the country also lost $19 million each year in access time for open defecation.

“Each opened defecation person spends 2.5 days every year finding an obscure place to hide, leading to economic losses,” he said.
The workshop was meant to begin the implementation of the testing modified community led sanitation (CLTS) scalability project designed by Plan International, with support grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to be implemented in Ghana, Kenya and Ethiopia with different models.
Mr Quansah said $1.5 million was lost each year due to productivity losses, while $54 million was spent each year on the treatment of diarrhoea and its consequences for other diseases such as respiratory infections and malaria.

The study also revealed that approximately 13,900 Ghanaian adults and 5,100 children under five died each year from diarrhoea, out of which nearly 90 per cent was directly attributed to sanitation and water problems.
It also revealed that 4.63 million Ghanaians had no latrines at all and defecated in the open, while 16.34 million used unsanitary or shared latrines.
Mr Quansah noted that with the current sanitation coverage of 14 per cent and the current negative practices of open defecation, it would be difficult for the country to meet the Millennium Development Goal on sanitation, which has a target of 54 per cent, unless the public changed their attitude.

According to the report, a person in the Upper East Region was 27 times less likely to use a latrine as a person in Ashanti Region.
For regional disparity on open defecation, Upper East recorded 82 per cent; Upper West, 79 per cent; Northern and Volta, 31 per cent, and Central, 18 per cent.
The Western Region recorded 13 per cent; Greater Accra, eight per cent; Eastern and Brong Ahafo, six per cent, and Ashanti, three per cent.

Mr Quansah said because sanitation was among the powerful drivers of a nation’s development, there was the need to change the old mindset of providing, prescribing and teaching and rather adopt the ‘we do it for them’ spirit.
“With a little effort, we will achieve the 54 per cent target of the MDG on sanitation. All we need is to intensify our advocacy, show commitment and enforce our laws at all levels,” he said.