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The interdependence of Sanitation and Hygiene, and access to Potable Water
According to Mr. Apoya, Hygiene is a way of life. Its ultimate expectation is a level of cleanliness that guarantees the non-transmission or non-transportation of any harmful organisms from the environment into the individual’s body system (e. g. via the mouth, feet). Achieving that end depends on ensuring proper sanitation in the environment.
Mr. Apoya stresses, “Yes, it’s good to have your hands very clean and to be tidy, and environment is clean. But it is even better, if the source of the contamination or the source of the germs is well contained in a manner that, even the exposure to you is reduced.” He reiterates the interrelatedness between Hygiene and Sanitation and says that Hygiene is about exposure and reducing the chances of one getting contracted to germs. “Sanitation,” he says, “is about containing the germs such that they will not even get to your environment that will present a risk to you. So, the two are actually connected.”
Pollution of 60% of Ghana’s Water Bodies: Causes and Implications for supply of clean water
The dire consequences of environmental pollution on water supply and sanitation are so critical to the lives of the people in the rural communities that everything is being done to curb the negative tide. Mr. Apoya gave an overview of the critical situation. He says, “There are a number of factors that have led us into this, but there are immediate ones and remote ones.
Remotely, it is about the breakdown of law and order and institutions. This has given room for people to engage in an illegal activity for so long, transparently and plainly that it has almost become a legal thing until someone wakes up one day and says no this is illegal and we have to stop it.” He laments, “We have a situation where state institutions lose control and they just watch things that ought not to be happening, just happen in plain daylight then we get to situations like this.”
The inability of the State to provide job avenues for the teeming population, especially the youth, Mr. Apoya notes, is a major factor for the menace. He believes that if everyone is occupied in a decent job, then “the ability to do trial and error to notice that even this is lucrative more than an office job wouldn’t have happened.”
He asserts that it is when one is idle that one begins to explore and comes to the conclusion that what is not desirable for society is what is lucrative and rewarding for one to pursue albeit illegal. He decries the seeming complicity of some financial institutions who fuel the illegal activities of the culprits by lending them money to promote their work while denying law-abiding businesspeople loans to run their legitimate businesses. Continue Here
