Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Upper west Region have been advised to pass and enforce sanitation by-laws to help curb the menace of open defecation in the region.

The National Consultant of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Mr Ibrahim Musah gave the advice at a ceremony to present a report on a five-year WASH development plan for the Wa Municipality toward achieving Open Defecation Free (ODF) and other sanitation challenges by 2025.

He pointed out that the sanitation situation in Ghana was very bad and advised that government should prioritize sanitation issues to avoid health problems in the near future.

He said about 95.7 per cent of the residents within the Wa Municipality have no access to toilet facilities in their homes, which he described as a recipe for disaster.

Mr Musah noted that even though the Municipality is blessed with a good water source, and that some communities like Limanyiri and Nayiri were still facing water challenges due to the nature of their settlement.

He said assessment of the two communities is very difficult for Ghana Water Company and proposed that the Municipality seeks support from the Low Income Customer Support Unit (LICSU) for assistance in order to reduce the cost.

Mr Musah further revealed that there were still some dark spot communities that were captured for the Assembly to prioritize in order to increase their access to WASH facilities.

He appealed to civil society and other development partners to assist the Wa Municipal Assembly and other MMDAs in the region to enable them meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on sanitation by 2030.

“The Assembly can raise a lot of revenue if sanitation by-laws are passed and properly enforced because anytime the by-laws are violated people will be prosecuted and that will also help the Assembly to achieve ODF in the near future”, he said.

“I therefore want to urge all the MMDAs to pass sanitation by-laws to assist the government in the quest to make Ghana the cleanest country in Africa”, he reiterated.

The WaterAid Ghana funded the report compilation.