GWCL Locks Up Sege Public Toilet For Owing Water Bill

The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) at Ada East has closed the only public toilet at the Sege District of the Greater Accra Region for owing it GH�5,800 as at the end of 2013. The public toilet, which was built in 2007, was operational until 2013 when the Sege District Assembly gave it to a private individual, Adonis, to run it and render accounts to the assembly. Following the closure, hundreds of residents of the two-year-old district are bracing themselves up to paint the town red as, according to them, they cannot continue going into the bush to defecate. A source at the assembly told The Finder that the debt it owes the GWCL is beyond the assembly�s revenue. A fortnight ago, scores of market women at the Sege Lorry Station planned to go on a demonstration to register their displeasure at the situation, but some members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) entreated the women to rescind the intended protest. One of the market women, an NDC member who pleaded anonymity, said the demonstration would surely be staged because the women cannot be defecating in the bush. Mentioning the encounter some of the women usually have with wild reptiles when they go to defecate in the bush and the possible physical and sexual abuse some men may subject them to, she said it was important for everyone who wanted the forward march of Sege to join them in the demonstration to demand the re-opening of the public toilet. Drivers at the Sege Lorry Station who spoke to The Finder described the closure of the public toilet as worrisome and one that needed urgent attention by the District Chief Executive (DCE). Other residents appealed to the GWCL to reduce the debt the district owed it so that the toilet could be re-opened to the public, to avoid the open defecation currently going on in the town.