Friday, November 5, 2010

NO APPROVAL FOR BUILDING PLANS WITHOUT TOILET FACILITIES


The Tamale Metropolitan Assembly has declared that, henceforth it will not give permits for residential and other human habitable accommodation in the city unless such edifices have toilet facilities.

Accordingly, all landlords and landladies of all existing residential structures most especially compound houses have been urged to take urgent steps to provide toilet facilities or blame themselves when the Assembly begins its verification exercise very soon.

The Mayor of Tamale, Alhaji Abdulai Harruna Friday, gave the warning at Gurugu, a suburb of Tamale recently at the commissioning of a new public toilet for the community.

An estimated 95 percent of houses in Tamale noted to be the fastest growing city in West Africa have no toilet facilities, according to the Waste Department of the Assembly.

Even homes that originally have such facilities they had been converted into rooms for rent due to the high demand for accommodation facilities by people.

As a result, any bush found anywhere in the Metropolis is being used by residents as a place of convenient thereby creating air pollution and so much discomfort to people.

But Alhaji Harruna Friday, said there is a policy that is gradually being implemented by most Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in Ghana to phase out the pit or public latrines concept and the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly cannot afford to be left behind.

The Mayor observed that the idea of public toilets generally came about to serve the needs of travelers and other strangers who had no permanent residential status in the city but not for the entire resident population of a town or community.

According to him, the Assembly recognizes the financial difficulties and other logistical challenges facing most landlords and landladies saying “that cannot be an excuse for non compliance and added that toilet facilities in a home are as important as a room in a house meant for renting”.

The Mayor of Tamale used the occasion to remind all residents in the Metropolis of an impending general cleanup exercise in the city slated for Wednesday, the 27th of November, 2010 and appealed to all to embrace the periodic cleanup exercises instituted by the Assembly as part of measures to keep Tamale clean at all times.

On the other hand, the Chief of Gurugu, Gurugu-lana Ibrahim Mahama appealed for speed rumps in the area to check over-speeding by some motorist claiming that the lives of inhabitants and their livestock are constantly being threatened by over-speeding drivers.

He also appealed for streetlights for the area to ensure security especially at night and also promote economic activities in the area.

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