Mr Justice Owusu Ansah Pobee, the Environmental Health Officer of Dormaa Central Municipal Assembly, Bono Region has warned the Assembly would prosecute recalcitrant traders who sold under unhygienic conditions at market places in the municipality.
Mr Pobee gave the warning when he was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Dormaa-Ahenkro about environmental health issues and issuance of certificates to food vendors in the municipality.
He said after series of public campaigns, awareness creation and sensitisation aimed at drawing the attention of traders to keep and maintain proper hygiene at their selling points in the markets, some of them had refused to follow the orders.
“Their food items attracted flies, they lay mat on bare ground along the shoulders of the road which blatantly flouted the rules and is unacceptable”, Mr. Pobee stated.
He said opinion leaders and chiefs in the municipality agreed to the idea and offered their support for the exercise’s success.
Mr Pobee said staff of the Environmental Health Unit too had been educating members of the public to make right decisions when buying food items by buying from sellers operating in clean environments at the marketplace.
So, if traders, especially those who sold food items under unhygienic conditions did not get patronage and required sales, they would be compelled to comply with the demand of the laws relating to environmental health for the health and safety of the public, he added.
Mr Pobee expressed concern that when recalcitrant traders who flouted the Assembly’s orders were summoned, their “influential” relatives would come to the office to plead on their behalf, saying that was improper because such approaches only perpetuated wrongdoings in the society.
He concluded the Assembly would continue to embark on educational campaigns to change people’s negative attitudes and behaviour through effective application of the Assembly’s byelaws against offenders for them to be law-abiding.
