Francis Ahiaho and Samuel Tenkpor, both household heads, have been ordered by a Hohoe Magistrate Court to build a toilet by February 27, 2023. They were brought before the Court for refusal to construct household latrine and depositing of faeces in polythene bags behind their living room and bathhouse.
Tenkpor offered a plea of guilty with explanation, but was unable to clear himself of the accusation, while Ahiaho entered a guilty plea. They will return to court on February 27 to be sentenced after the judge granted them bail in the amount of GH1,000 with two sureties apiece. The defendants were household heads who inherited the house from their late father, according to the prosecutor, Mr. Frank Azila-Gbettor, who testified before the court, which was presided over by Madam Edith Lucy Dzormeku.
He claimed that on February 2 of last year, a group of environmental health officers in charge of the neighborhood discovered during a routine premises inspection that the two accused individuals’ occupants had dumped their waste throughout the house, particularly at the back of their living rooms and the bathroom. In the presence of another woman who also resided in the same house, the officers, according to Mr. Azila-Gbettor, alerted the wife of the first accused individual to the nuisances located on their property. He claimed that on February 4, when they were brought to the office, the two accused individuals begged for an extension of one month so they could build latrines for their household.
According to Mr. Azila-Gbettor, the first accused individual properly recorded and signed an agreement that was struck between the two of them and the officer in charge. He claimed that on May 24, three months after the initial inspection, the police returned to the house and were shocked to discover that not only had the latrine-building practice and the practice of defecating in plastic bags and leaving some of them behind continued. Following trips on July 1, September 13, November 7, and December 21, according to Mr. Azila-Gbettor, showed that the phenomenon persisted and the latrine was still not constructed. He said the occupants still practiced open defecation and hoarding human excreta in the house.
When the summons was served on the defendants on January 11 of this year at around 8:30 a.m., Mr. Azila-Gbettor noticed that there was evidence of open defecation as usual. He highlighted that the lack of household latrines in homes forced household members to perform open defecation, either by defecating on the ground directly or by bagging up human waste and dumping it in public locations. According to Mr. Azila-Gbettor, the act may have caused an offensive odor, housefly breeding, and a disease outbreak, including cholera and typhoid fever.
