Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations operating in the Northern Region have been blamed for their failure to partner the district assemblies to address the challenges of sanitation. Mr. Issah Zakaria, Yendi Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) who made the remarks said “it is ironic that in the Northern Region civil society organisations and NGOs have not shown keen interest in partnering the assemblies in dealing with the myriad of challenges facing the sanitation sector”. The MCE made the observation in a speech read on his behalf at an event on sanitation policy for basic schools organised by the Community Life Improvement Programme, an NGO in Yendi on Tuesday on the theme: Analysing the sanitation policy and calling on all to wake up to their responsibility.” It was aimed at educating school pupils on the importance of sanitation as it relates to their health. Mr. Zakaria said sanitation is a major problem, which cannot be solved by the assemblies alone and therefore called for effective public/private collaboration to address the challenge. He called on NGOs to write proposals and submit them to the assemblies to facilitate effective collaboration to tackle the issue. Alhaji Mohammed Shaibu, Municipal Planning Officer said the assembly had embarked on the construction of institutional latrines to ensure that adequate sanitation measures are in place to avoid epidemics. He said the assembly had constructed 38 public latrines in eight communities and six additional toilet facilities for some health centres. The assembly ha also built 59 latrines in 46 schools and 1,906 household latrines in 74 communities. Source: GNA