Ho, June 6, GNA - The Ho Municipal Environmental Health Office would vigorously enforce the ban on the use of pan latrines by close of September. It has therefore issued letters of notice to landlords including government institutions and tenants to that effect. Mr Samuel Galley, an Environmental Officer who hinted the Ghana News Agency (GNA) about the measure, could however not give statistics of pan latrines in the municipality, except that they were many. He said the Police Barracks and some government quarters were among houses still using pan latrines.

Mr Galley said his office would prosecute offending individuals and institutions after the deadline, which he claimed was a government directive.

He conceded that government support in the past to get residents to convert their pan latrines were only partially successful. Mr Galley said the management of pan latrines was a nightmare for Environmental Officers.

He said tenants resort to burying the waste in their back yards or engage people who pour the stuff into open drains and rivulets. Mr Galley said the practice was creating serious health concerns in the municipality, as water sources were being contaminated, and hordes of vectors breeding in the mess.

He said besides the issue of pan latrines, access to toilets in the municipality was not the best, because many homes did not have toilets. Mr Galley said as a result there was a lot of pressure on the public toilets, which were built for the use of visitors and not residents. He said residents in homes far from public toilets do it "free range," which account for the gobs of toilet in some nooks and corners of the municipality. Mr Galley said he was not aware of any running support programme by the Municipal Assembly for residents to construct toilets. He said the Assembly was however about to begin promoting a dry toilet system, very hygienic where filtration process over a period produces manures from the human waste.