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03.06.2018 Feature Article

Imprisonment, The Only Way?

Imprisonment, The Only Way?
03.06.2018 LISTEN

President Nana A. Addo in his quest to transform Accra into the most beautiful city in Africa announced in 2017, a National Sanitation Brigade to enforce sanitation laws nationwide.

In the wake of that, the Adjaben Magistrate Court has jailed 11 persons for 30 days each for breaching Act 851 section 56 of the Public Health Act 2012. As reported by Citi NewsRoom, 10 out of the 11 names were provided and they are; Emmanuel Holornyo, Yahaya Assuma, Bashiru Zaaki, Abdul Wahab Inusah, Montario Mohammed, Victor Saviour, Akolobila Akudibila, Prince Kamorudren, Ibrahim Issifu and Umar Mohammed.

According to the report, The Accra Metropolitan Assembly Sanitation and Monitoring Taskforce arrested them around the ICGC church, Old Fadama, Mortuary road, GCB liberty house, Tudu, Rawlings park, Kantamanto, Tema station, National theatre, Kimbu and James town on 30 May, 2018 for various misdemeanors ranging from open defecation and urination to indiscriminate dumping of waste.

The Head of Operations at the Assembly's Public Health Department, Mr. Randolph Morkeh further urged the residents in Accra to consider legal and appropriate ways of waste disposal. He advised residents to put up toilet facilities in their homes and register with accredited solid waste companies so as to ensure efficient disposal of waste.He said, "If you give your waste to these junkies, we will arrest the junky and come after you too".

Well, whiles the arrest reiterates the AMA's commitment to ensuring a cleaner Accra, eye brows are being raised about the end product of the arrests. The prison was instituted as a way to prevent perpetrators of certain crimes from having social contact. The lack of social contact in itself was seen as enough punishment.

In Ghana, the state of most prisons leaves more to be desired as most cells are packed with so many people. In the end, the needed change and transformation which the prisons ought to provide to the inmates are not realised but rather, prisoners become more toughened as a result of the type of treatments they go through.

It is therefore quite surprising that people who dirty the streets of Accra are also sent to prison where the tax payer's money will be spent on providing food for them. Instead, why not make these perpetrators rather engage in a community cleaning service which will be of immense benefit to the tax payer and also boost the President's quest to see to it that Accra becomes the cleanest city in Africa.

I honestly believe that jailing people for sanitation crimes do not really offer much in the long term, however tasking them to participate in community cleaning will be of greater benefit to the nation as a whole.

Baiden Gideon
[email protected]

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