By Evans Worlanyo Ameamu
Keta (V/R), June 11, GNA – The Keta Municipal Assembly in the Volta Region has announced plans to reintroduce Town Councils as part of efforts to promote environmental hygiene and improve public health outcomes in the municipality.
The move forms part of the Assembly’s renewed and comprehensive strategy to maintain high standards of environmental, personal and social hygiene among residents, with support from community leaders, health workers and civil society organisations.
Mr Wisdom Seade, the Keta Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), said the decision to revive the Town Council initiative, which had seen reduced activity in recent years, was aimed at promoting good personal and environmental hygiene and preventing communicable diseases.
“The reintroduction of Town Councils forms a critical pillar of the Assembly’s broader public health and environmental sanitation agenda. Lasting change in hygiene behaviour can only be achieved through sustained community-level mobilisation and education,” he said.
Mr Seade explained that the revived Town Councils would work directly with Unit Committees, community health volunteers and environmental health officers to conduct regular sanitation inspections, identify and report hygiene violations, and coordinate community clean-up exercises.
He said the initiative would help tackle persistent challenges such as filth, open defecation and indiscriminate waste disposal in several parts of the municipality.
Mr Seade noted that Environmental Health Officers of the Assembly had expressed strong support for the initiative, adding that the absence of active Town Council structures in recent years had created a governance gap at the local level and contributed to deteriorating sanitation conditions in many communities.
“Town Council personnel will serve as force multipliers for the environmental health staff currently deployed across the municipality and help improve community health outcomes,” he stated.
The Assembly indicated that the reintroduced Town Councils would also play an active role in promoting personal hygiene education at the household level.
Council members would be trained to disseminate key public health messages on handwashing, proper toilet use, safe food handling and the importance of sleeping under insecticide-treated mosquito nets to prevent malaria and other vector-borne diseases.
Some community and opinion leaders have welcomed the announcement, saying the reintroduction of Town Councils would help restore civic responsibility and collective ownership of the cleanliness and orderliness of public spaces, markets, beaches and residential areas that have suffered from years of neglect and inadequate oversight.
Mr Korbla Zanu, a resident, commended the Assembly for the initiative and called on residents to actively support the work of the revived Town Councils.
“We cannot always wait for the Assembly to come and clean our streets and gutters. This initiative will give us the structure to organise ourselves and take ownership of our environment. I urge all residents to cooperate,” he told the Ghana News Agency.
The Municipal Assembly has also appealed to traditional rulers, religious leaders, teachers and youth groups to support efforts to promote the activities of the Town Councils.
The Assembly emphasised that the success of the initiative would depend largely on the commitment of all stakeholders to champion hygiene and sanitation and warned that persons who litter or fail to keep their immediate surroundings clean would face sanctions under the Assembly’s by-laws.
GNA
Edited by: Maxwell Awumah/Audrey Dekalu