Zambia – Public Health attributes dirt to lack of enforcement of law

National Deputy Director of Public Health and Research, Fordson Nyirenda says lack of enforcement of the law results in accumulation of filth in most districts around the country.

Mr. Nyirenda said lack of enforcement of the Food and Drugs Act, the Public Health Act and the Trade Licensing Act among others, put consumers at risk of getting preventable diseases.

He bemoaned the current filthy status of most districts in the country which he said were a major contributing factor to poor health indicators considering the high prevalence rates of preventable diseases.

Mr. Nyirenda called for the resumption of regular medical examinations for all food handlers countrywide as provided for by the law after realizing that the number of defaulters was high in Livingstone and other districts.

Meanwhile, Livingstone Principal Resident Magistrate Davis Mumba called for a reduction in donor dependency in programs aimed at improving sanitation and uplifting the standard of living for Zambians.

Magistrate Mumba urged law enforcement officers to deal with people that were deliberately breaking the law with impunity like illegal retail traders.

He encouraged health inspectors in collaboration with other stakeholders to conduct regular inspections of public premises to ensure strict adherence to the law.

Magistrate Mumba said this today during the closure of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)-Legal Enforcement workshop at Woodlands Lodge in Livingstone.

The workshop was held from 4th -7th August with support from UNICEF and managed to close Murdochs Model Bakery, Maramba Confectionary and a number of bars, taverns and other trading places for operating under unsanitary conditions and for violating the law.

Source – Lusaka Times

India – Court notice to Delhi government on anti-scavenging law

New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) The Supreme Court Friday asked the Delhi government to explain its failure to implement a central law against manual scavenging that provides for elimination of dry latrines and rehabilitation of scavengers.

A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan issued notice after the petitioner Safai Karmachari Andolan (Sanitary Workers’ Movement) was able to demonstrate that there were at least 15 dry latrines existing in Delhi’s northeast district with at least five people still engaged in manual scavenging.

The petitioner, in fact, through a government’s reply under transparency law on the number of dry latrines in Delhi, demonstrated that the state government itself has acknowledged existence of 1,085 manual scavengers in Delhi.

The petitioner earlier had told the court, on the basis of its own survey, that there were 14,479 manual scavengers to be rehabilitated in Delhi after their job loss following elimination of dry latrines.

The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act was passed by the Union Government in 1993 with an aim to finish the demeaning profession of carrying night soil on head and rehabilitate the scavengers.

The law also provided for appointment of an executive authority for prosecution of the owners of the dry latrines.

As per the petitioner, though most of the states have already adopted the law and are striving to achieve its aim and objective, Delhi, apparently under the impression that it has no dry latrines or manual scavengers in its territory, have shown no hurry in adopting the law.

In fact, an affidavit filed by the Delhi government in March 2008 “categorically denied existence of any such latrine from where scavengers lift night soil manually and carry on their heads to the sites of disposal.”

The government, however, had admitted in its affidavit that there are latrines from where night soil flows into open drains and scavengers push the night soil with the help of brooms and also sludge in wheel-barrows up to the disposal point.”

Upset by the revelation that the Delhi government considered demeaning only the task of carrying night soil by scavengers on their heads and apparently treated pushing it with broom in the open drain as acceptable, the court issued notice to the Delhi government for its failure to implement the anti-scavenging law till now.

Earlier on April 30, the court had also sent to district magistrates the details of over 2,000 dry latrine owners in over 25 districts all over Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan seeking their explanation for their failure in demolishing the latrines and prosecuting the owners.

The Safai Karmachari Andolan has been waging a relentless legal battle since 2003 seeking implementation of the 1993 law against scavenging and elimination of the profession, undermining human dignity.

Read More – Thaindian News

Ghana – Assemblies urged to prosecute Sanitation offenders

Mr Las Bayou. Upper West Regional Environmental Health Officer has urged the Municipal and District Assemblies to prosecute people who flout sanitation bye-laws to deter them.

“This problem will continue to stay with us unless the Municipal and District Assemblies begin sending such offenders to court, especially those who do not keep their surroundings clean.”

He said only Jirapa, among the nine Municipal and District Assemblies in the region, had on a few occasion’s prosecuted people who infringed on the bye-laws and urged the other Assemblies to also do same.

Mr Bayou who spoke to the Ghana News Agency at Wa on the challenges his out fit faced in the management of waste in the region, said they would in future publish the names of all offenders to serve as a deterrent.

He said people in Wa, the regional capital, even refuse to confine their animals and allow them to roam freely and that when the animals are caught by the authorities impounded and their owners fined, “there was always an outcry.”

He was not happy that after the massive clean up exercise about two months ago, people had gone back to their old ways of dumping refuse indiscriminately.

“The drains have been re-choked with waste because residents were not cooperating with Environmental health officers and Zoomlion to keep the area tidy.”

Mr Bayou commended Zoom Lion, Plan Ghana, the Ministry of Health and the Community Water and Sanitation Agency for supporting efforts to ensure environmental cleanliness in the communities.

Source – Modern Ghana

Uganda – 90 Masaka men arrested for lack of pit latrines

OVER 90 people in Kooki county in Rakai district have been arrested for not having pit latrines in their homesteads, the district health inspector, Kaddu Lubega, has said.

Lubega said the culprits were charged at the Grade I Magistrate’s Court in Lwanda town, which fined them sh80,000.

Lubega, who led the three-day health operation in the sub-counties of Byakabanda, Kacheera, Kyalulangira, Rakai town council and Dwaniro, urged residents to change their attitude on health issues.

The district medical officer, Dr. Robert Mayanja, said most residents were comfortable disposing of human waste in the bushes.

“That is why we experience severe cases of diarrhoea and other diseases caused by poor sanitation,” Mayanja said.

He accused LC, who did not have pit latrines of failing to lead by example. “We expected the LCs to join us in the campaign, but many of them went into hiding when they learnt of our advance to their villages,” Mayanja explained.

He said the operation would be conducted regularly in all sub-counties. “Those who were fined were also instructed to construct latrines. We shall carry out another operation to see if any improvement has been made. If not, we shall re-arrest and prosecute them,” he said.

Source – New Vision

Philippines – Dagupan okays first of its kind health, sanitation code

DAGUPAN CITY, Jan. 16 (PNA)–The city council here has passed Dagupan’s own comprehensive health and sanitation code which was dubbed as a “milestone legislation”.

City Health Officer Leonard Carbonell hailed the code authored by Councilors Jesus Canto and Michael Fernandez, that codified all national laws and existing city ordinances dealing on health and sanitation.

He said he was able to ask the authors of the code to insert as one of its provisions proper septic management practices for homes and industries so that the city’s aquifer would be protected.

The code was passed during the regular session on Monday by the city council presided over by Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez.

The overall objective of the code is to make the land, air and water of Dagupan safer for the benefit of its more than 150,000 population, he said.

The code was drafted by the council consistent with the Sustainable Sanitation in East Asia (SUSCEA) of which Dagupan City is one of the pilot places in the Philippines.

The sanitation code likewise has provisions regarding food and water and also sets sanitary requirements for all establishments and business, practices which were not observed before.

“It is a milestone legislation in the sense that you can count in your fingers the number of cities with existing sanitation code and gladly, Dagupan is now one of them,” he said.

Read More – Philippines News Agency

Nigeria – Sokoto Establishes Sanitation Mobile Courts

Following the re-introduction of monthly sanitation in Sokoto by the state government, sanitation mobile courts are to be established to try violators of sanitation laws.

Permanent Secretary, Sokoto State Ministry of Environment Engr. Muhammed Jabi Shagari said this while addressing offenders during the flag off of the monthly exercise at the weekend. Six vehicles and 32 motorcycles were apprehended for violating sanitation rules.

According to Engr. Jabi Shagari, the Sokoto state Task Force Committee on Environmental Sanitation was lenient to them as the exercise was re-launched that day.

He said the committee would be very strict during subsequent exercise and that anyone apprehended would be punished accordingly.

The permanent secretary called on motorists and motorcyclists to refrain from movement during the exercise, while urging all members of the public to cooperate with the state government in order to ensure good sanitary condition of the state capital.

He said it is vital that traders and residents ensure that their surroundings are kept clean at all times.

Chairman of the committee and state commissioner for Local Government Affairs, Alhaji Tsalha Sidi Mamman who noted the large turn out of the various groups and organizations for the sanitation exercise, said the gesture contributed to the success recorded.

He said it is their determination to ensure the restoration of the lost glory of the state capital as one of the cleanest cities in the country.

Read More – allAfrica.com

Uganda: Kayunga leaders arrested over latrines

ABOUT 26 people, one of them a sub-county councillor and four LC1 officials, have been arrested for lack of pit latrines [and taken to court]. This follows [an] operation by the Police led by the Kayunga sub-county health inspector, Abasa Kaneha.

[...] Most of the residents did not have pit latrines and many, including the NRM chairman for Nakaseeta parish, Andrew Kalyango fled, Kaneha said. “We will arrest anybody irrespective of which leadership position they hold. We plan to cover the entire sub-country,” he said.

Kaneha said the operation was meant to ensure that the cholera outbreak that was reported in Kayunga town would not spread to the villages.

Source: Charles Jjuuko, New Vision, 30 Nov 2008

Ghana – Zoomlion Calls For Sanitation Court

The Accra Zonal Supervisor of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr Robert Coleman, has urged the government to, as a matter of urgency, create a special court to prosecute people who disobey sanitation regulations.

That, he observed, would go a long way to help the country to resolve the increasing sanitation menace.

“If the government endorsed the creation of the motor courts to address issues of road safety, then it is also imperative that special sanitation courts are created to instil sanitation consciousness among the people, ”he contended.

Mr Coleman made the call in an interview with the Daily Graphic during a clean-up and beautification campaign organised by zoomlion in some parts of Accra.

“This clean-up exercise is very important, because given the historic nature of this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, delegates from other African countries and the European Union, including Ghanaians from the Diaspora as well as the international community will be in Ghana to witness the elections,” he stated, adding that there was the need to beautify the capital, particularly in view of the coming Christmas festivities.

Mr Coleman said the Zoomlion thought it wise, as they did during the Ghana @ 50 celebrations and the CAN 2008 tournament, to clean up and also beautify the national and regional capitals by painting pavement walls along major ceremonial roads.

The campaign, dubbed: “Peace Clean-up” was in collaboration with Krafty Hospitality, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), in conjunction with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), some market women associations, members of selected churches and the office of the National Chief Imam.

Some of the major roads to be beautified, include roads from Shiashie to the Airport Junction, 37 Military Hospital, through to the Ako Adjei Interchange to the Kwame Nkrumah Danquah Circle.

Mr Coleman urged the government to liaise with the appropriate authorities to outline a comprehensive sanitation policy to ensure that sanitation laws were enforced, and that must include the reintroduction of the “Saman Saman” (sanitation inspection task force).

Source – Graphic Online

India, Tamil Nadu: Manual scavenging continues in State: SKA

Murugamma and Thirupalamma leave their homes early morning to clean human excreta. They are safai karamcharis, who are permanent employees of the Chennai Corporation and perform this daily chore at the dry latrines in Gandhi Nagar, Pallavan Salai, near General Hospital.

Inspite of earning Rs 6,000 per month, they are still looked down upon and treated as untouchables. For them, the international year of sanitation does not make much difference.

The Safai Karamchari Aandolan (SKA), in its survey of 19 districts, identified 171 manual scavengers in Tamil Nadu [excluding] unofficial manual scavengers. {…] Bezwada Wilson, national convener of SKA, said that not a single person had been prosecuted for violating the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 by the State.

Source: Nalini Ravichandran, Express Buzz, 23 Oct 2008

Uganda: 11 million lack latrines

Speaking at the opening of a two-day sanitation workshop at Mt. Elgon Hotel in Mbale town,  state minister for water, Jennifer Namuyangu, urged the public to practice hygiene and proper sanitation in order to control diseases.

According to the health ministry statistics, about 11.2 million people in the country do not have latrines.

Namuyangu said safe water and sanitation issues are not only about disease prevention, but also human dignity. “Easing yourself in the bushes could lead to contracting diseases and even sexual harassment,” she warned.

[...]

The Mbale district chairman, Bernard Mujasi, said enforcing sanitation laws in homes had not succeded because the village leaders were preferred to the district leaders. Mujasi said in the 1960s and 70s, latrine coverage in the country was over 90% because chiefs had powers to enforce sanitation laws in the communities, unlike today where LC officials just watch the bad situation because they fear to lose their positions during elections.

Source: Joseph Wanzusi, New Vision, 25 Sep 2008