Forty environmental health officers drawn from the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Northern, Savannah and North East Regions have undergone a two-day training to enable them to prosecute environmental health and sanitation offences.
The workshop was organised by the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources (MSWR) and formed part of Sanitation and Water Resources Project with funding support from the World Bank.
The officers were taken through basic sanitation laws, practices in the district courts, law of evidence and ethic and procedures in court.
The Acting Director of the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resouces, Mr Sampson Akwettey, addressing the participants said the aim of the training was to strengthen the capacities of the environmental health practitioners to ensure successful prosecution of offenders within the assemblies.
The Acting Director added that the training was to build the capacity of the environmental health officers to successfully prosecute sanitation cases in court as part of strategies of the ministry’s objective to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal Six (SDG 6).
“The Training is to expose the participants to the jurisdiction of the courts, code of ethics of environmental health prosecutors, and summary trial of cases in court, drafting of summons and charge sheets as well as witnesses and abduction of evidence,” he stated.
FROM YAHAYA NUHU NADAA, TAMALE
