CENTRE FOR SANITATION AND HEALTH PROMOTION (CENSAHEP) UGANDA
- Dennis Lukaaya
- Kampala, Central, Uganda
- Mobile:+256(0) 772 662 062 Email:lukaaya@yahoo.com OR censahepuganda@gmail.com
Friday, June 25, 2010
Ghana: journalist wins international award for water and sanitation campaign
October 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Raphael Ahenu receiving his award from Terry Waite
A Ghanaian journalist and human rights campaigner has won a British award for his water and sanitation campaign. Raphael Ahenu received a 2009 SMK Campaigner Award in the international category on 17 September 2009.
Mr. Ahenu is campaigning for clean water and sanitation facilities to be provided to 100 communities, schools and hospitals in the Brong-Ahafo and Ashanti regions of Ghana by 2015. Through radio talk shows and other publicity methods he mobilises rural communities to demand their rights to such facilities. Mr. Ahenu plans to advocate at the local level and lobby central government so that water and sanitation facilities are provided to rural communities in both these regions.
The Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK) is a charity set up in 2005 to connect, inform and support campaigners. The winners of the annual SMK awards receive support, advise and training to further develop their campaigns.
Mr. Ahenu is CEO of African Media Aid (AFRIMA) based in Sunyani. He offcially launched his "Access to Clean Water and Sanitation" campaign on 25 September 2009 at Odumase in the Sunyani West District of the Brong-Ahafo Region. Ay the launch, he announced that from next year AFRIMA and Global Media Foundation (GLOMEF) would be presenting Sanitation and Hygiene Awards to recognise outstanding achievements in this area by organisations, individuals and communities in Ghana.
Zambia: KCM hands over sanitation facility
June 25, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Konkola Copper Mine (KCM) on Monday handed over water and sanitation facilities built at a cost of K170 million at George Mwelwa Basic School in Chingola.
Chingola district commissioner Tobias Maliti said during the handover ceremony of the facilities that the amenities will ensure a favourable learning environment for staff and pupils.
Mr Maliti said the water and sanitation facilities are important to any existing community in Zambia and urged beneficiaries to guard them jealously.
He warned that there could not be any meaningful national development in the country without education and health services.
"We are happy that KCM has brought water and sanitation services to our children at George Mwelwa Basic School. We can now be rest assured that diseases such as cholera will be avoided following the services that have been brought to the school.
"Health and education are one of the most important areas that the government wants to achieve through the Millennium Development Goals and this is why Government allocates huge sums of money towards these two sectors," Mr Maliti said.
He said KCM has continued to make quality health care accessible to many people in its areas of operation, through corporate social responsibility.
KCM human resources manager George Mutono said the water and sanitation project that the mining company handed over to the Government is a demonstration that it is ready to help improve the quality of life in Zambia. Mr Mutono said KCM's vision is to help Zambia regain its status among the big league of copper producers in the near future.
"It's our belief that George Mwelwa Basic School will benefit from the facilities we've handed over to the government. These are designed to create a more conducive learning environment. Clean water and decent sanitary facilities are the right of every Zambian," he said.
Giving a vote of thanks, school head teacher Mary Musukwa said the school was opened in 2004 without any toilet and safe drinking water for a population of 500 pupils.
Meanwhile, KCM has electrified Mushima Basic School on the Chingola-Solwezi road at a cost of K40 million.
Mr Maliti commended KCM for funding the electrification of the school.
Mr Mutono said electrification of Mushima Basic School was done with the realisation that Zambia will not attain the Millennium Development Goals without such projects in schools.
Source: Alex Njovu, Zambia Daily Mail, 24 June 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Kenya: Crisis feared as cholera outbreak kills 60
June 24, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Several parts of the country face a medical crisis after 60 cholera deaths were recorded in the first six months this year.
Although the number is smaller than the 86 cases reported in the same period last year, it is still worrying.
A Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation update on disease outbreaks says 13 deaths and more than 880 cases had been reported in June alone.
Lang'ata in Nairobi and Kilifi and Kaloleni districts in Coast Province have reported new cases in the past one week.
The ministry also reported that one person had died after eating aflatoxin-contaminated maize in Eastern Province earlier in the year.
In total, 3,090 cholera cases were reported in 33 districts countrywide, raising fears of an epidemic due to poor sanitation and heavy rains.
During a similar period last year, the deaths stood at 86 out of 4,073 cases. The disease, spread by bacteria in contaminated water, causes rapid dehydration and death.
"Beginning January 2010, outbreaks of cholera have cumulatively affected 33 districts nationwide, causing a total of 3,090 cases and 60 deaths.
"So far the outbreaks have been controlled in 24 districts," the ministry said in the statement.
Pokot West District has recorded nine deaths and 527 cases since April. ActionAid last week recorded at least 10 deaths in Pokot East following a sudden outbreak of a disease with diarrhoea symptoms.
An estimated 10,000 people in the district's Plesian area are in need of medical care. Ms Dinah Nyorsok of ActionAid said the situation had been complicated by the long journey through rough terrain in search of medical care.
Source: Daily Nation, 24 June 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
March 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Encouraging communities to work to improve their health and hygiene means empowering people with the right messages and the means to improve their sanitation systems. In Eritrea, the remote Emberemi village is located in the midst of a powdery pulp of sand. On a typical homestead there are a few houses, a little kraal with cows tethered to wooden posts, and on the corner is a toilet, also constructed of local shrubs. Harsh living conditions don't trouble the villagers, but were noticeable to a visiting team from UNICEF and the Ministry of Health, who arrived to monitor the community-led total sanitation strategy (CLTS).
A project with promise
CLTS is a revolutionary low-cost approach to rural sanitation where communities are facilitated to assess their own sanitation situation, analyze and take action to stop open defecation and build their own latrines without any subsidy and using locally available materials. In 2010, the Ministry of Health, with the support of UNICEF, plans to enable the 60,000 households countrywide to stop open defecation. According to the latest estimates, only five per cent of Eritrea's population has access to improved sanitation facilities. The CLTS project bears great promise and could position the country towards achieving the MDG target on sanitation.
Better toilets, better hygiene
The household of villager Amna Abdela Mussa, age 45, was the first to be visited. She paused from her laundry to welcome the team and show them her toilet. "I heard the message from Ministry of Health on the importance of sanitation and I took it upon myself to construct my own toilet," she said. The toilet also serves as a bathroom and has two off-site pits. On one side is the toilet and on the other side is the seat for bathing and a pit for dirty water. To ensure good hygiene, a small jerry can is positioned at the door. It is tied to a wooden post, with a rope extending from its mouth to a small peg on the ground. The idea behind this is that one does not have to touch the jerry can, but on stepping on the rope, it automatically tilts the jerry can downwards to enable hand washing. A bar of soap is positioned next to it. Ms. Mussa is just one of the many Eritreans who have enthusiastically embraced the CLTS. In 2008, one village was declared and certified to be open defecation free (ODF). In 2009, a momentous community mobilization initiative geared towards collective behaviour change to give up open defecation and take up safe hygiene practices took off, with a total of 11,000 households having stopped open defecation and 11 villages now ODF.
Partnerships for shared success
The momentum gained in sanitation has been made possible through funding from the United Kingdom's Department for International Development. According to UNICEF's Chief of Water and Sanitation in Eritrea David Proudfoot, this partnership is key and progress depends very much on sustained funding for the project. "If we are to sustain results and build on the momentum, this funding must continue, it will position Eritrea on the path to achieving the Millennium Development Goal on sanitation," Mr. Proudfoot said. It is estimated that approximately 448,000 Eritrean households in rural areas need to build and use their own toilet in order to meet the MDG target by 2015. One of the pioneers of the CLTS, Dr. Kamal Kar believes that this target is very much achievable. "Eritrea has great potential to serve as an example to the world given the commitment of the government," Dr. Kar said.
Source: UNICEF, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/eritrea_52289.html, 31 Dec 2009
Nigeria: Installing toilets to reduce blindness
June 23, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Lack of access to clean toilets or an adequate water supply, living in close proximity to animals, and poor public health awareness have helped put 2.3 million people in northern Nigeria's Borno State at risk of contracting trachoma, a bacterial infection causing blindness.
But practising simple good hygiene and stopping open defecation can significantly reduce the chances of contracting the disease, says NGO Helen Keller International (HKI).
Two-thirds of Borno's 15 districts are trachoma-endemic, according to an HKI survey, with half of those infected, primary-school-age children. The state also has Nigeria's highest river blindness prevalence levels.
"Poor sanitation, lack of personal hygiene and acute water shortages are major causes of this disturbing health problem," HKI's project manager in Borno State, Peter Aimankhu, told IRIN.
Trachoma is a chronic contagious viral disease marked by inflammation of the eye-membrane, eyelids and the cornea of the eye; the formation of scar tissue leads to impaired vision and blindness, making trachoma the world's leading cause of preventable blindness. It is spread through eye-to-eye infection through people or through flies.
The virus, the world's leading cause of preventable blindness, infecting 41 million people worldwide, is characterized by the World Health Organization as one of the world's forgotten diseases.
Why Borno?
Northern Borno State, on the Niger, Chad and Cameroon borders, is particularly prone to trachoma because it is dominated by cattle-rearers, many of whom whom keep their animals in their homes, and use their dried manure as fertilizer or to plaster their mud houses, attracting flies, according to HKI.
Poverty and poor hygiene practices, whereby villagers defecate in the bush near their homes, rather than using latrines, helps the disease to spread, said Sarah Wakirwa, an ophthalmic nurse involved in an HKI trachoma prevention project.
"Most of the people are poor and the cost of digging pit latrines is far beyond their reach. Some have no option but to defecate in the bush even if they will want to have a toilet," HKI project manager Aimankhu said. The bulk of Borno State's population lives on less than a dollar a day.
Northern Borno is arid and villagers must trek long distances to source water for domestic use, so many prioritize water use for drinking and cooking and only use it to wash every few days.
Not a priority
Between 2002 and 2007 HKI went from village to village to spread public health messages; helped people treat trachoma with a simple antibiotic (tetracycline) eye ointment; performed surgery on 781 people with advanced cases – called trachiasis – where the eyelashes turn inwards, scratching the cornea and causing blindness. The organization focused on 344 of the most at-risk villages in 10 of the 15 affected government areas in the state.
But the government has done very little to tackle the disease since, say villagers.
Because it is non-fatal and causes progressive rather than sudden damage, the virus is often not taken seriously by health practitioners or governments, says HKI.
According to a Borno State Ministry of Health official, who asked to go unnamed, "the government does not prioritize health in its budgeting, and trachoma is not one of its health priorities."
However, it can ruin lives if contracted. "My life has not been the same since I lost my sight to trachoma six years ago," Maiduguri resident Lado Bukar, told IRIN. "It started with reddening of my eyes followed by itching which I mistook for mild infection that could be treated with eye drops."
"The ailment progressed for five years and I began to lose my vision. I lost my job as a private security guard and now live on begging."
Interventions
HKI staff also constructed ventilated pit latrines for primary schools in 10 villages in the worst-hit area of Bama near the Cameroon border, and trained teachers to detect the signs of trachoma early in their pupils.
Trachoma rates in these schools declined, says HKI. The programme has been a success when teachers are included to encourage pupils to wash their hands and faces and avoid defecating in the bush.
"But it is a different thing when they return home because compliance then depends on parents' disposition to personal hygiene," HKI's ophthalmic nurse Sarah Wakirwa, told IRIN. And despite public health campaigns, most villagers still keep their cattle in their homes and coat their houses in manure said Aimankhu.
The government health officer told IRIN: "It all boils down to environmental and personal hygiene. The government can only tell the people what they should do to avoid preventable diseases, including trachoma, but cannot force compliance. That is a personal issue."
With insufficient funding to treat the five remaining government areas, HKI's Wakirwa worries the 12,000 treated people risk being re-infected by those in the five as-yet untreated government areas. A prevalence survey has to be carried out to assess the impact the project has had on the communities covered, Aimankhu said.
HKI is optimistic it will find the funding to complete the treatment, but even when money does become available, it will have to rebuild its medical teams as the existing ones have been disbanded by Borno State health management who appointed the staff to clinics and hospitals across the state.
Source: irinnews, 21 June 2010
Ghana: USAID and CHF promote sanitation through fun games
June 23, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Corporative Housing Foundation International (CHF) is facilitating the implementation of projects to improve water accessibility and enhanced sanitation for the urban poor in Ghana. Under the name Ghana Water Access and Sanitation and Hygiene for urban poor (Wash-up), the projects which are underway in Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi are both under the Africa Urban- Poor to Improve Water Supply and Sanitation Programme funded by United States for International Development (USAID).
Organizers said that Wash-up is geared towards improving conditions in slum communities that have very poor access to water supply and sanitation services, due to interlinked infrastructural management, managerial, economic and behavioural constraint, resulting in high incidence of associated diseases such as typhoid fever, malaria and cholera.
As part of the Ghana Wash-up hygiene promotion, fun games are periodically organized in areas like Nima, Ayidiki and their environs all in Accra to sensitize and educate the residents on the need to promote access to water and good sanitation and ensure sound hygienic practices in their vicinities.
This month's fun games took place at Ayidiki during which saw the participation of some football legends from the community all to promote hygiene behavior communication change in the community.
Children who participated were presented with items such as hand washing soaps, biscuits, footballs, crayons and T-shirts as incentives to boost their morale to join in the implementation of the project, while their mother clubs were presented with some crates of minerals, plastic baskets and biscuits.
In an interview with Public Agenda, Mrs. Margaret Owusu-Amoako, the Behavioral Change Communication Specialist of CHF International explained that Wash -up sponsored the project in response to a request by the communities with the aim of promoting access to quality water, sanitation and to ensure proper hygiene in urban poor areas in Ghana.
"This programme is planned to promote hand washing with soap among the community members at critical times, stopping open defecation, proper maintenance of facilities given to them by State authorities and finally to pave way for Land Lords to contact the water board when in need," she said.
She, however, mentioned that although the communities indeed received them, there were a number of challenges they were facing. She said some of the community members erroneously think that CHF and USAID have come to share or put money into their pockets, and that the little help they offer must be paid for this attitude plays down on voluntarism.
She therefore advised all community members of the three areas to join them in the implementation of these projects to maintain a clean environment. She also encouraged the communities to try as much as possible to prevent dirt since it has health implications.
"So far, so good," were the words from Hon. Thomas Akwasi Seffah, the Assembly member of Ayidiki. He was very happy to see such an important project in his community and the impact it has left on his people.
He disclosed that the people have indeed changed their way of living since the formation of this project and that the entire religious leadership of the area, namely Islamic, traditional and Christian, have accepted the idea wholeheartedly.
He mentioned that a 12- member committee has been formed to look at issues concerning water access, sanitation and hygiene and other issues relating to toiletries to ensure peace and unity in Ayidiki.
He thus advised the people of Ayidiki to work hand in hand with CHF and USAID to achieve the aim of developing Ayidiki and its environs.
Source: Cindy Dilys Maade Asamoah, Public Agenda / allAfrica.com, 18 June 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Uganda: Ruhama Gets Safe Water
12 June 2010
Kampala — First Lady and MP for Ruhama Janet Museveni's mission is to ensure that all her constituents have access to safe and clean water by 2016.
Mrs. Museveni commissioned boreholes at Nyakashozi and Ngoma primary schools and toured ongoing water projects at St. Peter's Rwera Senior Secondary School on Wednesday.
Addressing residents of Ruhooko Parish in Ntungamo Sub-county, Ngoma in Nyachera Sub-county and Rwera in Rweikiniro Sub-county, Janet said: "We have started by providing water to schools and health centres, but with God's grace, we hope to do more."
The two boreholes constructed by Living Waters International, a Christian NGO, were donated by the Bethany United Church in Seattle, US, in response to Mrs. Museveni's request to her American Christian friends, Hands of Hope, for assistance to alleviate the water problem in Ruhama County, Ntungamo District.
Mrs. Museveni reminded her constituents that God sent her to represent them in Parliament and it is His divine hand that is providing all the developments in the area.
The borehole at Nyakashozi will provide safe water to 564 pupils and the surrounding community, while that at Ngoma will serve 406 pupils and the community.
About the lack of staff houses in most schools in the area, Mrs. Museveni assured the people of Ruhama that the Government plans to construct the houses.
Relevant Links
She was perturbed by the poor management of the NAADS programme and the overpricing of commodities which she said was frustrating the Government's efforts in increasing household incomes and getting people out of poverty.
The Director Living Waters International, Beau Abdulla, said the NGO which has been operating in Ruhaama since October 2009 is involved in Water works constructions, Hygiene and Sanitation trainings and Evangelism.
To date the NGO has sunk 16 boreholes and constructed four rainwater harvesting systems in the area.
The First Lady also donated 10 sewing machines to St. Lucia Vocational School Rwera and pledged to construct a boy's latrine at Ngoma Primary School.
Ghana: Provision of Water And Sanitation Facilities Reduce Scuffles in Nima
Public Agenda (Accra)
Gifty Mensah
11 June 2010
Some residents of Nima, a suburb of Accra, have expressed their appreciation to the Corporative Housing Foundation (CHF) International and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for providing the Nima community with four water points and 15 toilets. According to them, the facilities have eased the problem of congestion at various pipe stands and public lavatories. Previously, congestions resulted in scuffles, they claimed in separate interviews with Public Agenda during fun games organized in the Nima community recently by the CHF International under its flagship project called 'Water Access and Sanitation Hygiene for the Urban Poor (WASH-UP)'.
Assembly Member for Nima East, Shareau Tajudeen, told Public Agenda that CHF's intervention was timely, scaling up the provision of basic needs in terms of water and sanitation facilities. He recalled that "the typical problem facing Nima was mostly water and sanitation." He assured that the community members would take care of the facilities to serve as incentive to the providers to do more for the community.
Relevant Links
The Accra District Mothers Club Facilitator, Miriam Sailifu, explained to Public Agenda that CHF has come to enhance the activities of the mothers club which was set up about 15 years ago in the Nima community to mobilize and educate women on the need for clean environment. She said that presently the mothers club was facilitating some activities of CHF within the community and that the activity of the organization was a boost to the community's health programme. She commended the Foundation for supporting the community, urging it to continue the good works of hygiene promotion and improving the lives of urban poor settlers. According to Alhaji Abu Garba, the Chairman for the Water and Sanitation Board, the CHF had come to the community to improve the lives of Nima residents through behavioral change.
He said the CHF has organized several training programmes for the Water Board, giving the Board members a broader knowledge on water and sanitation. Consequently, Nima, which hitherto was perceived to be unhygienic, could now boast of improved sanitation, he stated. Mr. Philip Francis Ampadu, Program Director, WASH-UP project, noted that the objective for the project was to provide water, public and household toilets for six communities including Nima, Newtown, Avenor and Ayidiki, all in Accra.
Uganda: Water and Sewerage Corp to Build Modern Waste Plant
Steven Candia NEWVISION
13 June 2010
Kampala — National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) has secured a £67m loan to construct a modern waste treatment plant in a bid to check pollution on Lake Victoria.
According to the NWSC principal analyst, Lance Okwerede, the project will include a new sewerage line, a sewerage treatment system and a power generation plant.
"We should be able to start work in September or October," he said in an interview at the Speke Resort Munyonyo, after a boat cruise to assess the level of pollution on Lake Victoria.
Under the project, sewerage treatment plants will be established at Lubigi, Inner Murchison Bay, Bwaise and Nalukolongo, Okwerede added.
The project seeks to revamp the city sewerage system, improve urban hygiene and sanitation and protect Kampala's natural environment.
NWSC also hopes to produce up to three megawatts of biogas electricity from the fecal sludge.
Niger: thirsty as well as hungry
June 11, 2010 · Leave a Comment
A bad harvest season has punished the rural and urban poor across Niger, but food insecurity has been compounded by a critical lack of water in the worst-hit southern province of Zinder.
"The women with whom I've spoken in villages have said water is their first problem," UN Under-Secretary General John Holmes told journalists during a visit to Zinder in late April.
He found the stress on water striking, and this was backed by the similar experience of staff at humanitarian agencies; a food security survey by the government and humanitarian partners in April 2010 also found that almost half the country's households shared the same anxiety.
Niger is facing a severe food crisis resulting from erratic rainfall in 2009, which caused large cereal and pasture shortages. Some 7.1 million Nigeriens – or half of the population – are moderately or severely food-insecure, according to the most recent government study undertaken in April 2010.
Farmers in Dalli, a village 100km from the town of Zinder, suffered a total harvest failure in 2010 and now travel 20km to Tanout town to buy water. "Even if we have food, how can we prepare it without water?" Mariam, 55, a mother of 10, told Holmes.
Some water points in Zinder's most parched districts are drying up. In Koleram village, 15km from the town of Zinder, Oubeida Ichaou, 30, told IRIN the water level in the only well was falling fast and she sometimes had to wait several hours before she could draw water. "There are too many people around the well, too many cattle. You have to come very early in the morning, or even stay the night … to draw water."
Zinder's Regional Director of Water Resources, Mamane Moussa, said engineers sometimes had to dig down several hundred metres before they found water, which was very costly.
Nutrition, health, education
Water points at health centres across Zinder, which are part of the malnutrition response, are also facing shortages, said Moustapha Niang, a Water, Hygiene and Sanitation specialist at the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The number of malnourished children admitted to health centres has sharply risen in recent weeks as the lean season peaks, according to UNICEF.
In urban areas, 42 percent of people have access to drinking water, and seven percent to improved sanitation facilities; in rural areas 32 percent have drinking water and three percent have access to improved sanitation. UNICEF estimates that 80 percent of deaths in children younger than five are linked to lack of access to clean water and sanitation facilities.
Niang called on donors to "ensure water and sanitation activities are financed, for without this any malnutrition response will not be effective … Clean drinking water and decent sanitation [is essential] to reduce the prevalence of diarrhoea, which can exacerbate the problem of severe malnutrition."
Need for investment
Desert covers three-quarters of Niger, yet it has valuable renewable water sources, including about 31 billion cubic metres of surface water, 2.5 billion cubic metres of groundwater in natural aquifers, and 2,000 billion cubic metres of non-renewable water. According to the government, just 20 percent of renewable water resources are being tapped, and almost none of the non-renewable sources.
There are few studies and little data to help humanitarian actors understand the scope of Niger's needs in agriculture, livestock, people and energy. The Ministry of Water Resources did not respond to IRIN's requests for an interview.
In a national investment report presented at a 2008 conference on "Water for agriculture and energy in Africa", officials stressed that "Water is one of the government's priorities" to fight food security and poverty, and estimated that investments totalling $1.5 billion would be required in the "short, medium and long term".
Donors, including the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Union, and various countries, have injected more than $300 million in projects directly or indirectly related to agriculture, livestock, and water over the past decade, according to the government. In December 2009 the previous government announced it would invest $54 million in 2010 to improve the availability and quality of water.
Despite these collective efforts, the needs are still far from being covered, particularly in drought-prone regions like Zinder and Tanout. Holmes highlighted the need to act in concert to deal with the root causes of food insecurity and malnutrition in Niger.
"The water is there, [deep] down. It is worth investing in," he urged. "We could do that; the cost is huge, but it is not impossible.
Source: IRIN, 10 Jun 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Management of Kampala’s toilets throws a stink
By JOSHUA MASINDE
Published January 6, 2009
KAMPALA, Uganda- 'This place stinks'; a graffiti in a Kampala public toilet curtly tells its story. But nature's call is defiant, and so people simply ignore the warning.
The contradiction however is that this stink is lucrative business in the city. Public toilets total about 300 in Kampala according to Mohamed Kirumira, acting chief health inspector at Kampala City Council (KCC). Some of the public toilets were constructed courtesy of a World Bank loan to the Ministry of Local Government through Local Government Development Programme between 1999 and 2006. Some Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), also constructed more public toilets, especially in Kampala's peri-urban informal settlements, through projects like Kampala Urban Sanitation Programme and the Ecological Sanitation Project. Such toilets, constructed by the NGOs and other organizations, are found in the high density areas like slums to bolster the existing ones in the city, most of which are located in car parks, recreational centres, schools and at police stations.
When the NGOs and other community based organisations construct the public toilets in such peri-urban settlements, they are handed over to the area local council chairpersons, who determine, in consultation with user committees in respective areas, how much to be charged and the modalities of management.
Here is where the insanity creeps in. Many a time, when the person who donated the land for construction of a public toilet by the NGOs ends up falling out with the LC chairperson or with the user committee, the person ends up turning the public toilet into a private toilet.
"Many public toilets in slum areas have been turned into private toilets even when the toilet was constructed by an NGO," Kirumira said.
There are also cases where public toilets are arbitrarily demolished by private developers. One such incident occurred in Kisenyi, where a public toilet was demolished, and a bus terminal built on the ground upon which the toilet once stood.
"This often happens when land is sold to individuals who demolish the toilets, yet the donors used between Ush20 million (US$10695) to Ush30 million (US$16043) to set them up." For instance, about Ush30 million (US$16043) was used in the construction of a public toilet along Namirembe road, yet it didn't last for one year. Now, there's a bus terminal in its place.
Mamerito Mugerwa, Kira town council mayor in May 2009 spent a night in jail after he reportedly mobilised some of his area residents to block the demolition of a public toilet in Bweyogerere. The mayor had argued that the land where the public toilet was situated is a road reserve, and should not be developed by an individual, who had claimed ownership of the plot and had fenced off the place, including the public toilets.
But Kirumira says that the situation was much worse during the Idi Amin and Milton Obote regimes when public toilets were under the management of the city council.
Dr. Mesaki Mubiru, the director of Health Services at KCC, says before 1989, public toilets were dirtier and posed a big threat to public health. The privatisation of their management meant that it was the responsibility of the contractors to provide soap, toilet paper, and to clean the public toilets to ensure they don't compromise the public health.
Although there was some improvement following the privatization, poor management threatens to derail the process. There have been instances of political interference and tensions between KCC and private developers.
A survey conducted by EAiF reveals that neither the contractors nor the attendants adhere to most of the terms stipulated in their contracts. Women and men share the same toilets while adequate water is not provided. Users are also routinely overcharged. The terms in the agreement specify that the contractor shall charge a fee of not more than Ush 100 per person per entry with the exception of minors, disabled and all school children in 'school uniform' who shall be exempted. However many of public toilet attendants increased the charges from Ush100 (US$0.05) to Ush200 (US$0.1), yet they pay the same amount of money to KCC under contract agreement.
Equally disturbing is that some cooking and eating joints adjoin some of these toilets. This is a looming public health disaster still largely ignored.
Reach Joshus Masinde at jmasinde@eafricainfocus.com