The Adenta Municipal Assembly is to hold a crunch meeting with the Municipal Education Oversight Committee over issues concerning the maintenance of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) sanitation and water project constructed for some public schools in the area.
This follows complaints that parents of pupils in the beneficiary schools have refused to support in the maintenance of the facilities.
The GAMA project was sponsored by the World Bank and the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources.
Under the package some public schools in Accra and Kumasi were provided with 12-seater water closets in addition to mechanised boreholes as part of the schools sanitation and hygiene promotion to end open defaecation in the schools.
Per the agreement, parents of pupils in the beneficiary schools were to help maintain the facilities but have refused to play that role effectively thus leaving the burden on the schools which also do not have any resource to dislodge the facilities.
This was revealed at a stakeholder forum organised by the assembly for the residents of Ogbojo and its environs that some schools could not fund the maintenance of the facilities.
The MCE, Alexander Daniel Nii-Noi Adumuah, not happy with the turn of events said an emergency meeting would be held with the managers of the schools within this week to find a lasting solution to the problem.
He said the parents at several meetings prior to the start of the project agreed to take control of the facilities in order to ensure good hygienic practices in the schools to ensure its sustainability and wondered at the sudden change.
Nii-Noi Adumuah indicated that after the meeting an amicable solution would be found for the problem since it’s the children of the parents who are attending the school and nothing would be done to defeat the purpose of the project.
On other matters, the MCE said the area had about 974 kilometres of roads but only 127 kilometres are tarred and urged the residents to bear with the assembly as efforts were being made to put the rest in shape.
He urged the residents to regularly undertake health checks to stay healthy and not wait till they are sick.
BY LAWRENCE VOMAFA-AKPALU
