Ghana: 40 percent of Kumasi residents rely on public toilets

Kumasi, Ghana – The household-toilet ratio appears not to be improving in the Ashanti Regional Capital as 40 percent of residents in Kumasi depend on the public toilet.

The head of waste management of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Mr. Anthony Mensah, disclosed this when the Chief Executive officer of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Hon. Kojo Bonsu, paid a working visit to the 100 hectare Landfill site at Kaase in Kumasi, to see how the Waste management is handling waste in the Metropolis, in the face of Cholera outbreak.

According to him, the KMA has four hundred toilet facilities in the metropolis. The KMA Waste management unit head stated that these toilet facilities are well kept to offer a place for those without toilet facilities in their various homes, which situation he said was good, because it helped to mitigate indiscriminate disposal of human excreta, which is the prime source of cholera.

Mr. Mensah indicated that the situation where residents mix human excreta with ordinary waste was a potential medium for Cholera outbreak, hence the building of public lavatories. He disclosed that the Kumasi Landfill is a sophisticated and engineered one which enhances waste collection in the Metropolis.

Hon Kojo Bonsu said proper waste collection was high on KMA’s radar and that the French Government is to build another landfill site for the KMA to facilitate waste collections in the city.

According to Mayor Bonsu, the AFD French Government’s project would equally be sophisticated with a 15-year lifespan, which will cost 2 million Euros.