Sanitation Guards employed under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) have been warned not to pose as Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) in the discharge of their duties. Naa Lenrason Demedeme, Director of Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment (MLGRDE) gave the warning at an orientation workshop for 90 sanitation guards drawn from seven districts of the Northern Region at Tamale on Monday. He told the guards: "You are to assist the EHOs to enforce sanitary laws and regulations of the assemblies and in the supervision and monitoring of sanitation services". The MLGRDE in collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment organised the one-day workshop for the guards from Savelugu/Nanton West Mamprusi, East Mamprusi, East Gonja, Tolon/Kumbungu, Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo districts and the Tamale Metropolis. The forum was to educate the sanitation guards on their code of ethics, the socio-economic implications of sanitation and health, roles and responsibilities of sanitation guards and the statutory provisions on environmental sanitation. Naa Demedeme, a facilitator at the workshop, reminded the sanitation guards that they would be putting themselves into serious technical and legal problems if they posed as environmental health officers. He told them that EHOs were professionally trained and as such, they were the technical people mandated to undertake certain duties, while "you as sanitation guards, are expected to only assist them". "You should not regard your employment under the NYEP as a permanent job but as either an opportunity to further your education or an avenue to gain technical training for better employment", he said. He urged the guards to take their work seriously since environmental sanitation and human health were closely linked and added that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) could be undermined by poor sanitation. Mr Mohammed Amin Adam, Tamale Metropolitan Chief Executive, who opened the workshop told the guards not to be discouraged in the discharge of their duties even though they would face a lot of difficulties trying to help improve sanitation in the communities. "You are getting out there to fight the hearts and minds of the people to bring about the needed attitudinal change and this requires patience and understanding and you have to prepare yourselves mentally for the task ahead", he said. He said the government on its part, was mobilising all the resources needed to ensure a clean and healthy environment for the development of the country and its people. The Metropolitan Chief Executive said the Assembly spent more than two billion cedis quarterly to keep the metropolis clean and noted that this could have been used for the development of other infrastructure "if we had maintained a clean environment". Source: GNA