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Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah has stated her ministry’s efforts in fighting open defecation across the country have yielded positive results within a short time in office.

According to the minister, the Sustainable Rural Water and Sanitation project has provided targeted communities with 12,972 household toilets.

The project, among other interventions she explained, has aided various communities to attain open-defecation-free status.

In 2015, Ghana was ranked second by WASH after Sudan in Africa for open defecation. Most households were identified without a proper toilet facility. Failure on the part of landlords to construct houses without washrooms, among other factors has facilitated the practice of open defecation.

Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, announced at a Press Briefing on Tuesday, December 3, 2019, that the country’s vision of attaining an open-defecation-free status was on a good course. The ministry, while addressing the press, stated the achievements of the Ministry of Sanitation.

“The ministry through the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) Sanitation and Water project has also within the project period constructed 26,000 household toilets benefitting about 180,000 low-income communities. Under the same project, 260 beneficiary schools have been provided with toilet facilities to benefit 200,000 school children,” the minister stated.

According to Cecilia Dapaah, during her 3-month-tour in Accra and some parts of the country, she observed that the issue of water, sanitation, and hygiene was still a major challenge. She called for the attitudinal change among sanitation offenders adding that the National Sanitation laws will prosecute persons who breach sanitation laws