Eleven to serve 330 days in prison for sanitation offences
The Adjaben Magistrate Court has sentenced 11 persons to serve 30 days each in prison for contravening Act 851 section 56 (a) and (b) of the Public Health Act 2012.
Their crimes include open defecation, urination and indiscriminate dumping of refuse.
They are Emmanuel Holornyo, Yahaya Assuma, Bashiru Zaaki, Abdul Wahab Inusah, Montario Muhammed, Victor Saviour, Akolobila Akudibila, Prince Kamorudren, Ibrahim Issifu and Umar Mohammed.
The court presided over by His Worship, Isaac Addo, also fined Ibrahim Alhassan, GH¢ 240, and granted Nicholas Mensah, Adongo Cletus and Lawal Olarenweju a bail in sum of GH¢ 2000 with a surety each to reappear on June 13.
Mr Charles Bosomprah, the Head of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) Sanitation and Monitoring Taskforce, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency after the prosecution, said they carried out the operations around 0600 hours on May 30, 2018.
He said the operations were carried around the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Old Fadama, Mortuary road, GCB Liberty House, Tudu, Kantamanto, Tema Station, National Theater, Rawlings Park, Kimbu and James Town.
Mr Randoph Benjamin Morkeh, the Head of Operations at the Assembly’s Public Health Department said before beginning the operation the AMA’s Environmental Taskforce had educated the public to desist from dumping indiscriminately and engaging in open defecation and urination since the Assembly was bent on enforcing its bylaws.
He said the AMA is doing all it could to eliminate open defecation and indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the city, adding that any person caught in the act would be dealt with in accordance with the law.
Mr Morkeh said the operation would continue and cautioned households who do not have toilet facilities to register with the assembly for the provision of the facility.
“We will advise that households or residents should have toilet facilities for themselves and also register with the accredited solid waste company for their waste to be collected and disposed of sanitarily, if you give your waste to these junkies we will arrest the junky and come after you too,” he said.
Mr Morkeh warned residents and public toilet operators who discharge effluent into public drains to desist from the practice as the AMA would come after them.
Source: GNA