AN epidemic is looming at Nsawam, a popular bread producing town on the Accra-Kumasi road, as most bread producers there have reportedly refused as required, to cover their bread with polythene bags before sale.

"The colour makes the yam look like that kind of yam (pona) that is considered superior quality," he said.

However, he said many of them have not been cooperative and are still selling the uncovered loaves and coloured fried yam.

He warned that the assembly was in the process of forming a sanitation task force to monitor and arrest producers who failed to abide by the bye-laws.

The sanitation policy dialogue, organised by the Ministry of Local Government & Rural Development and Environment and the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation, was to create a platform for stakeholders to discuss effective ways of managing sanitation and environment challenges in the country.

It is part of activities preceding the sixth National Sanitation Week which has the theme, "Clean environment, and healthy people".

Mohamed Amin Anta, Tamale Metropolitan Chief Executive, in his presentation noted that any action plan on sanitation required a lot of political will for effective implementation since that area posed a huge challenge to socio-economic development.

He also called for preventive guidelines on sanitation to guard against health risk in communities, adding that there was the need for the assemblies to strengthen their environmental and health units to have the capacity to do better.