Kumbungu adopts steps to end open defecation

The Kumbungu District Assembly, with support from UNICEF, is adopting mechanisms aimed at ending open defecation in the district to promote best practices of environmental hygiene.

The objective of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) project is to attain a district wide open defecation free communities within three months so that the people would be free of communicable diseases.

While UNICEF is supporting the district to construct household latrines through its Integrated Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (IWASH) programme, Assembly Members would be made to sign an undertaking to embark on a vigorous sensitization to ensure that those who do not have latrines defecate in a hole they dig.

Alhaji A.B.A. Fuseini, Deputy Northern Regional Minister, said this on Tuesday during the second ordinary sitting of the Assembly.

Alhaji Fuseini is the Acting Kumbungu District Chief Executive, one of the newly created Assemblies carved out of the Tolon/Kumbungu and is yet to get a substantive DCE.

He commended UNICEF for the initiative and appealed to Assembly Members to volunteer their time to help the project to succeed since open defecation poses a threat to healthy living especially during the rainy season.

He said as much as the country’s development partners were ready to help address critical problems facing sectors of society, it was important for community leaders to contribute their quota towards achieving such goals.

Alhaji Fuseini said the district remained one of the poorest in the region, bringing about negative effects including the exodus of its youth to the cities for nonexistent jobs.

Source: GNA