A prominent legal practitioner has dismissed a proposed law to make the monthly National Sanitation Day exercise mandatory.

Samson Lardy Anyenini said in a post on his Facebook wall that government's determination to make non-observance of the national clean up exercise a criminal offence amounts to nothing but a duplication of existing legal frameworks.

He argues that the move smacks of sheer laziness on the part of the initiators since there exist laws both in the country's Criminal Code and the Public Health Act against throwing rubbish in the streets and open places, but which are rarely enforced.

The host of the weekly Newsfile news analysis programme aired on Joy FM and Joy News Channel on Multi TV wrote thus: "In our criminal law, it is an offence to throw rubbish in the street, etc and the law in section 296 says: 'Whoever does any of the following acts shall be liable to a fine not exceeding ¢200,000 namely — in any town places, or causes or permits to be placed, any carrion, filth, dirt, refuse, or rubbish, or any offensive or otherwise unwholesome matter, on any street, yard, enclosure, or open space, except at such places as may be set apart by the local authority or the health officer for that purpose…' Why don’t we enforce this, and just why did we create the Sanitation Courts?"

In a bid to whip up support for the national clean-up exercise, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development - the initiators of the clean up campaign - announced it has prepared a draft bill that, when passed, will make it obligatory for citizens to join hands in cleaning gutters and sweeping streets on the first Saturday of every month.

Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Nii Lante Vanderpuiye, who made the announcement at a stakeholders’ meeting at Koforidua recently revealed that the new law had been drafted and would soon be laid before Parliament for approval.

However, Mr Anyenini believes the solution to ridding the country of filth is to enforce existing laws.

He insists it would be unconstitutional to pass another sanitatation law and has called on legislators to block it when the draft bill reaches Parliament.

Read (in the subsequent paragraphs) the source of Mr Anyenini's discontent with the proposed Sanitation Law, as posted on his Facebook page on April 7, 2015:

The more I read and hear about plans to pass a new law to compel citizens to undertake clean up exercises, the more I get angry at the sheer laziness in the system.

The local gov’t ministry announces a draft bill is ready for the purpose because interest in the monthly exercise is fast waning. Jesus Christ!

Why pass laws if we won’t enforce them? In our criminal law, it is an offence to throw rubbish in the street, etc and the law in section 296 says: “Whoever does any of the following acts shall be liable to a fine not exceeding ¢200,000 namely — in any town places, or causes or permits to be placed, any carrion, filth, dirt, refuse, or rubbish, or any offensive or otherwise unwholesome matter, on any street, yard, enclosure, or open space, except at such places as may be set apart by the local authority or the health officer for that purpose…”

Why don’t we enforce this, and just why did we create the Sanitation Courts?

Why did we upgrade the punishment for this offence just in 2012 in the Public Health Act so that it now attracts a fine of up to 250 penalty units (a penalty unit = GHC 12.00) or up to three years imprisonment or both?

Will there be [a] need for any sanitation exercise that costs the state so much if these laws including the offences of selling unwholesome foods etc were enforced?

Let no serious MP support this unconstitutional laziness! Legislating to compel citizens to undertake clean up exercises will not pass the constitutional muster. Give this job to convicted prisoners if the assemblies can’t do it well for all the money they take.

Just what is wrong with us?!