Man jailed for 21 days for refusing to build a household latrine | Social

A Kadjebi Court of First Instance remanded Muftaw Yakubu, a motorcycle operator in Koto Nkwanta, Kadjebi District, for 21 days in custody for sanitation-related offenses.

He was remanded for refusing to build a latrine for the house, for badaulting a sanitation officer and for obstructing him.

The court heard that on January 11, 2019, Yakubu had threatened a cutlbad, Flora Kortorsi, an environmental health officer, to put him to the task of building a latrine for the house.

The officer provoked the arrest of Yakubu and he was remanded on 8 April 2019 to serve a three-week sentence in police custody and pay a fine of 560 GHC.

According to reports to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), one week after his release from police cells, Yakubu had built a personal latrine and badumed the role of natural leader of sanitation in his community.

GNA learned that Yakubu now supports environmental health facilitators in the community and helps the community reach ODF status.

Ms. Savior Kumahor, District Environmental Health Officer, said the lawsuit against Yakubu served as an alarm to other communities in the district.

He said that the Koto Nkwanta community had been fired in 2012 but had still not been declared ODF.

She noted, however, that after the court proceedings, 15 family latrines had been completed and 11 others under construction and hoped that the community would obtain ODF status by the end of April.

Ms. Kumahor said latrine-free homes would be taken to court in July 2019 and asked homeowners to take note.