The Municipal Environmental Health Officer (MEHO) for the Ga East Municipal Assembly (GEMA), Ing. Charles Ampomah Asabre, has cautioned residents and business operators against bad sanitation practices and abide by the by-laws or face prosecution.

On Monday, the Municipal Assembly's Sanitation Taskforce began a special exercise to enforce the sanitation by-laws while educating the public on best sanitation practices.

The exercise was carried out around the Abokobi market and lorry station where offenders were fined on the spot while the intransigent ones had some of their items seized.

The Taskforce checked weedy or bushy areas around houses and shops, choked gutters, piling of refuse in and around homes and shops, as well as food vendors operating without the appropriate health certificate.

15 people were issued with abatement notices and fined between GHC50.00 and GHC200.00 while the Abokobi Market Queenmother and her management team were fined Five Hundred Ghana Cedis (GHC500.00) for failing to check the dumping of refuse near the drain behind the market.

Unpalatable as the offense charged on them may seem, the Queenmother, Madam Vida Marquaye, embraced the exercise, expressing happiness and satisfaction as she hoped it would help put the traders in check and cause them to shun bad sanitation practices in the market and their respective homes which the leadership have always advocated but to no avail.

The Municipal Environmental Health Officer (MEHO) Ing. Charles Ampomah Asabre, indicated that the exercise will continue at scheduled periods unknown to the public but appealed to them to ensure their immediate environs are kept clean all the time to avoid being prosecuted.



He further said the main focus of the exercise is to check bad sanitation practices and educate the public on the sanitation by-laws of the Assembly, it also has the potential to raise revenue from the instant fines imposed on offenders.

The MEHO observed that people have reclined in their adherence to the Operation Clean Your Frontage tenets but assured that the campaign is still in force and advised the public to desist from any negative sanitation practice.