Let Us Strike a Balance between Patronage and Sanitation

In Ghana, the ‘who you know’ syndrome is so powerful that some people manage to
get away with their just due. Mr Michael Dogbe, the Deputy Greater Accra Regional
Environmental Health Officer, has asked people in authority to stop interfering in
their work.
Mr Dogbe said such interferences adversely impacted their activities, preventing
them from effectively playing their roles in improving sanitation in the region.
He was speaking at a free health screening exercise for bakers in Tema and
Ashaiman organised by Olam Agri, an agribusiness, in collaboration with the Greater
Accra Regional Coordinating Council and the Ashaiman Municipal Assembly.
“There's a lot of interference in our job, and that is what is having effect on it; this
work can be done; our work is to go round, identify the nuisance, and call for its
abetment, but in the process, authorities from every level come in and they say, I'm
interested, and when it happens like that, everything shuts down,” he stated
The fact of the matter is that Environmental Health Officers (saman saman) are
crucial, if Ghana is to win the battle against filth and to improve public health. It is
generally known that filthy environs contribute significantly to poor health and the
contraction of diseases like malaria, typhoid and others. In this wise, it is necessary
that Environmental Health Officers be given free rein to do their work effectively.
They can only work effectively, however, if they are allowed to work without
interference.
It is in this direction that we support the call that they should not be interfered with,
so that they can do what they need to do, to keep all of us healthy.
(Editorial of the Daily Searchlight of 12 th August, 2024).