The Bui Power Authority has donated a 20-seater water closet toilet facility to the Tsiaveme Community in the Ketu North Municipality of the Volta Region.
The facility, which costs about GH¢650,000, consists of 20 water closet toilets, a dedicated borehole, a 10,500-liter tank, and a 2-horsepower electric water pump.
The facility is aimed at curbing the practice of open defecation in the Tsiaveme community and providing potable drinking water to the 1,200 residents.
Prior to the provision of the new toilet facility, the community had to either relieve themselves in nearby bushes or sneak into the KVIPs dug for the community basic school.
Handing over the facility to the community, the CEO of the Bui Power Authority, Kofi Dzamesi, said, “This project is significant to the authority in the sense that it will address Sustainable Development Goal 6, which is to ensure sanitation and water for all, as well as the challenges of open defecation and inadequate sanitation facilities in the community.”
The Assemblyman for Kasu, Tsiaveme, and Torfoe electoral areas, Amable Samuel Agbesi, confirmed the deplorable situation the community had endured until the intervention of the Bui Power Authority.
“The lack of potable water and safe and conducive toilet facilities have caused diseases in this community for many years,” he said.
“That is why we really appreciate this gesture by the Bui Power Authority under the leadership of one of our own, Kofi Dzamesi.”
The Municipal Environmental Officer for the Ketu North Municipality, Cephas Horsu, told the media that a screening of food vendors in the municipality revealed high typhoid rates among vendors in communities without public toilets or decent household toilets, including Tsiaveme.
Mr. Horsu pleaded for support in managing solid waste in the communities, as that formed the next major hurdle in the achievement of SDG goal 6 in several areas of the Ketu North Municipality.
The community was advised to take very good care of the facility with proper maintenance culture in order to extend the lifespan of the project.
The construction works were impressively done by a local company, Azigiza Constructions, which is replicating the design in other parts of the country.
