Residents of Anlo- Afiadenyigba in the Keta Municipality of the Volta Region are appealing for the construction of more public places of convenience in the town.
 
They also want financial assistance from the Municipal Assembly to build toilets in their homes. 

This, they believe is the surest way to stop open defecation, and its associated diseases like cholera. 

Anlo-Afiadenyigba has only four public places of convenience for a population of about nine thousand. 

Ghana cannot achieve about four of the global Sustainable Development Goals, if open defecation and other unsustainable environmental practices continue. 
In this feature, Bubu Klinogo takes a look at open defecation at Anlo-Afiadenyigba.
Anlo-Afiadenyigba is located along the famous Keta Lagoon.  
Anlo- Afiadenyigba has eight divisions from Dziehe to Tengekope. 
In terms of geography, Tengekope, Nyravase, and parts of Afiadenyigbaga, which are the largest in terms of size, are far remote from the lagoon.  

Inspite of somewhat thriving salt, fishing and Kente weaving business, which make the town, probably the economic hub of the municipality, it has a rather unenviable reputation as the worst in terms of sanitation. 
Indiscriminate disposal of domestic liquid and solid waste constitutes the major environmental issue in the town.  

For many years, it has ranked high in terms of outbreak of cholera, with a number of deaths, mainly due open defecation and other insanitary practices. Residents both young and old, males and females, literates and illiterates practice open defecation. 
The lagoon and its banks, mangroves, other vegetative cover, and any available open space serve as places of convenience. 

There is no doubt that, those who engage in open defecation know the associated health implications. 

The obvious question is why do they do it?  They are forced to do so, because of inadequate public places of convenience in the town. 
There are only four public places of convenience in the town and they are all sited along the lagoon.  For those who live quite a distance away from the lagoon, except a few who have private toilet facilities, open defecation is the order of the day. 

The practice takes place mainly in the bushes and farmlands, where there are hand dug wells which serve as sources of drinking water.  

Ironically, many of those who live near the lagoon do not use the public places of convenience, and rather prefer to defecate in the lagoon or the banks or in the mangroves. Some elderly women have taken it upon themselves to sweep the banks of the lagoon almost daily. Perhaps, that has been the mitigating factors so far. 

Here are the views of some of the residents. According to one resident, open defecation has been with them since time immemorial. 

Moreover, the problem is compounded by inadequate public toilets in the community. 

One other resident indicated that he practices open defecation because there is no public toilet in his area. 

According to him, places like Tengekope and Nyravase have no public toilets and he appealed to the authorities to construct more for them. 

Another resident told this reporter that even though her house is not far from the public toilet, she does not patronise it because of the heat in there. 

According to her, she fears getting white. She nevertheless also added her voice for the construction of more public places of convenience. 

One other lady said the only way out is for the municipal authorities to build more public toilets. She indicated that insisting on people constructing toilets in their homes will not work since most houses do not have any space for such facilities.

About three years ago, there used to be a lot of free range black pigs which fed on the fresh human excreta. 

Most times, they were present during the process of defecation and grabbed the excreta even before they dropped on the ground. As a result, it was difficult those days to sight human excreta along the lagoon, instead the places were full of pig faeces. 

Now, the reverse is the case because of a deliberate effort to get rid of the pigs. 

The Water and Sanitation Committee of the town recently rehabilitated one of the existing public KVIPs and converted it into water closet. 

A private individual has also put up a modern public toilet for purposes of generating biogas. The assemblyman for Dziehe - Ablame electoral area, Gilbert Kekli, spoke to Radio Ghana about the situation. 

He lamented the situation where his electoral area ranks last in terms of sanitation. As a way forward, he is instituting a sanitation award scheme to encourage good hygiene among his electorates. He is also lobbying the assembly for more public toilets. 

According to him, due to the poverty level in the town, it is difficult for the residents to build toilets in their homes since the amount involved is pretty high. 

One may ask if the officials of the Municipal Assembly are aware of the situation at Anlo- Afiadenyigba? Jerry Ziddah is the Municipal Environmental Officer. 

He insisted that, it is obligatory for every house to have a toilet. 

According to him, public toilets are for visitors and not residents. He said the assembly does not have any policy to assist people financially to construct toilets in their homes. 

He however, noted that they are concerned about the situation at Anlo-Afiadenyigba. 

He said over the last few years, a lot of education has been done to sensitize the residents to the dangers of open defecation and encourage them to build toilets in their homes. 

According to him, this has led to an improvement in the situation. He said sanitation situation at Anlo-Afiadenyigba was even worse than what currently prevails.

Ghana has committed itself to the global Sustainable Development Goals. 

Goal 3 talks of ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all at all ages. 

Goal 6 calls for ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. Under goal 11, countries commit to making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, while goal 14 speaks of conserving and sustainably using the oceans, seas and marine resources. 

In all these, one key target is to end open defecation by 2030. President Mahama in presenting the highlights of his party`s manifesto for the 2016 election, pledged to end open defecation in all parts of the country by 2021, nine  clear years ahead of the SDG deadline. 

The President's promise is laudable, but it calls for a bold and concrete action so that Anlo-Afiadenyigba and other parts of the country where open defecation is the order of the day, can be a thing of the past. 

This report was compiled  by Bubu Klinogo  of GBC, with support from the Media Foundation for West Africa and UNDP.