The Paramount Chief of the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Area, Osagyefo AmoatiaOforiPanin, has lambasted the Ghana Black Stars for their indiscipline behaviors exhibited at the Brazil World Cup 2014.

He said if nothing at all, the players should have trained after the president spoke to them and that they could have overlooked all the promises and trusted the president.

“The president calls the boys and yet they refused to train and later you see the boys with their chest out listening to the Anthem of Ghana how is that”. He said, “What audacity, the impudence for the President of Ghana to call you and you still refused to train. The most hated person in Washington against Obama, when Obama calls he answers.”

Lamenting that after all the assurance of the President, the players had the audacity to refuse to play Osagyefo Amoatia OforiPanin, described the behavior of the Black Stars as undisciplined.

He said this at the launch of the National Sanitation Day, under the theme “environmental sanitation, a shared responsibility” by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development on Friday October 17, 2014 at the Ghana International Trade Fair.

He lamented that, Ghana as a nation should be ashamed of the current United Nation’s (UN) ranking to be among the 10 worst countries in the world in respect of sanitation.

He said, “ I didn’t know that about one in five Ghanaians defecates openly and only about one out of every seven Ghanaians actually has a toilet until the UN report came out, it is a shame on us as Ghanaians”.

Osagyefo stated that, the mindset of the average Ghanaian is that things for the government can be destroyed since it’s not individually owned, “one steps out of his home, he can destroy anything on the street because it is not for him but for the government”.

He termed that kind of attitude as indiscipline and lack of respect of the laws of the country.

He said, “the different between the homo sapiens and animals is the higher gumption of ours, our ability to think, but sometimes we do things that makes me ask if we use it”. He urged all Ghanaians to work hard to improve the current sanitation canker and to vindicate ourselves from the UN report which puts us in a bad light. Osagyefo also hammered on the need for decentralization of the nation to enable various communities enact their owned bylaws to see to the sanitation issues. He noted that for the past two years, AkyemKyebi had not seen houseflies on its streets because they banned that, nobody should chew sugar cane on the street. He said “ the people who enforced that rules have not been to colleges and universities however it was successful”. OsagyefoAmoatiaOforiPanin said, the decentralization of the nation would compel people to take responsibility of their own environment.

The Vice President, His Excellency PaaKwsiAmissah Arthur, on his part said, the UN report is an indictment on the nation. He added that, it was sad that, about 70% of the out patients in the hospitals were there because of poor sanitation (cholera).

According to him when he went to the Black Stars Square one early morning for an organized health walk, he saw quite a number of people passing by them to the beach. He became alarmed and asked why the people were not joining them but headed towards the beach. He said to his surprise he was told that, the people were going for “early morning ablushy”.

His Excellency AmissahArthur, described the current situation as worrying because, sanitation was a shared responsibility and needed to be passed on to all sundries.

He said, “I heard the UN report and I think they were being soft on us, we have to be ashamed," he said.

He asked Ghanaians to change their attitudes towards insanitary behavior to ensure good health for development.

He pledged his unflinching support for the National Sanitation Day which from today comes off every first Saturday of the month to promote a clean environment. His Excellency Paa Kwsi Amissah-Arthur, also commended the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development for such an initiative which would put the nation in a good light.

The Minister for Health, Dr. Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, urged Ghanaians not to see sanitation as a “segment” or “isolated” component of the rural ministries but as a “public good” which needed to be seen as an integral component of the health services and the “basic health goods”.

He said, although the cholera epidemic was gradually dwindling, there was another serious issue of diarrhea among infants.

Dr. Agyeman-Mensah said, it was a fact that, one of the biggest killers of African children under five was diarrhea and Ghana was not left out.

He added that, there was the need to imbibed sanitation standards in our development goals to show a clear ambition for dealing with a visible “sanitation deficits” in policy formulation, implementation and technology appropriation. He therefore described the insanitary conditions today as largely the consequences of those development deficits.

The United Nation in its solidarity message read by, Susan NamondoNdongo, said Ghana was off track, contrary to its Millennium Development goal target for sanitation, in respect of achieving 57% by 2015.

She admitted that, Ghana was seriously battling with a sanitation problem just few weeks to the end of the goal set.

She said, the UN was aware that, poor sanitation was a contributor to a tragic death of over 160 Ghanaians to Cholera this year but was optimistic things would turn around.