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Environment: Accra bans bucket latrines

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has banned the use of pan, or bucket, latrines in the capital in compliance with a 2008 supreme court ruling that pan latrines be outlawed in Accra by 1 January 2010.

The ruling came after a local lawyer successfully filed a plea to ban the practice of employing “latrine boys” to dispose of the contents of bucket latrines in pans carried on their heads on the grounds that this was degrading and in contravention of their human rights.

Following the ruling the city council made available toilet construction facilities at subsidised rates for the conversion of bucket latrines into ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines or water closets.

However according to a report in the Daily Graphic the city council says 5,002 households, three industrial complexes, 243 hospitality businesses and 46 schools are still using pan latrines and are now liable to prosecution.

Pan latrines are particularly common in the poor neighbourhoods of Nima, Avenor, La, Nii Boi Town and Lapaz although they are to be found in all parts of the capital.

Seventy per cent of Accra residents do not have access to their own toilets and are forced to rely on the scarce – and, for some, expensive – public ones or to relieve themselves in the open.

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