RUWASSA says three more LGAs waiting for ODF certification

SELYA YARNAP,  Bauchi

The General Manager, Bauchi State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), Adamu Sabo has said that additional three local government areas would soon be declared open defecation free (ODF) after Bauchi LGA.

Sabo said this on Friday while speaking with journalists on the impact of the ODF status in the local government.

He explained that the whole process started through community mobilisation to stakeholders such as community and religious leaders, leadership of the local government as well as advocacy visits to relevant stakeholders in the communities in the areas.

According to him, 1,400 communities in the local government have been engaged by his office where they were educated on the dangers of open defecation. “We now took a collective decision to stop open defecation through the construction of improved latrines.

He added that, “we have the WASH unit where we have principal officers that usually go for the implementation activities and community mobilization. At the community level, we also have the WASH-COM, the local hygiene promoters, these are structures that drive the entire process at the community level.

“There is also the aspect of the toilet business owners, they were trained on how to construct improved toilets in the communities.”

Sambo said the Agency realised that the construction of latrines in the past had a lot of challenges during the rainy season where the toilets do collapse. “To solve this challenge, we identified micro financial institutions who give soft loans to construct improved latrines through the Toilet Business Owners who are trained to construct improved latrines in households.”

He explained that constant monitoring through the WASH unit gives updated reports about the successes as well as the challenges with the latrines and all other areas of WASH in the communities.

Sambo said that the stakeholders in the State have attributed the success achieved and more local government areas are waiting in the pipelines to be open defecation free in the state.