The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development will begin the construction of toilet facilities for selected houses this month, under the Sanitation Business Model One programme.
The sector minister, Mr Julius Debrah, therefore, has advised landlords who do not have the facility in their houses to take advantage of the programme.
“If you are a landlord and you don’t have a toilet facility in your house, all you need to do is to just walk to your nearest assembly to register or to contact the ministry to make the arrangement for the toilet to be constructed for you,” he told journalists.
Mr Debrah, who was outlining the sanitation programme for 2015 to journalists in Accra, explained that the government intended to roll out 20,000 toilet facilities both for domestic and public use.
He also said the programme would begin in the coastal districts as part of efforts by the government to stop open defecation.
Mr Debrah, however, reminded house owners that the provision of the facility was not free, pointing out that payment would be in instalments over two years with minimal interest charged.
Funding
Asked how the government was going to fund the project, Mr Debrah said the ministry already had an agreement with Fidelity Bank to provide funds for it.
In addition, he said the government, as part of its responsibility, had also made provision for funding to provide water and toilet facilities.
Water
On the provision of water, he announced that the ministry was supporting individuals, communities, institutions and schools to drill boreholes.
Mr Debrah said with regard to the harvesting of rainwater, interested landlords could also contact the assembly for the rainwater harvesting system to be installed.
“If you own a house and you want us to install the rain-harvesting system with poly tank, you can also go to your assembly and that can be done for you,” he said.
Affordable housing
Mr Debrah also revealed that the ministry was piloting an affordable housing system using local, appropriate technology in the Northern Region.
Those affordable houses, he explained, could be bought by workers through mortgage.
Mr Debrah said “all these will be rolled out from January 1, 2015 but as we move towards the middle part of the year, we want to introduce what we call the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) promotions because we have already said that the people who live within the various assemblies must be able to get something doing so that they will be able to pay their taxes and tolls, among others.”
He said he was hopeful that by doing so, the assemblies would be creating jobs for the citizenry.
