Tamale Metropolitan Chief Executive, Sule Salifu with Ing Dominic Aboagye at the launch
The Tamale Metropolitan Assembly in collaboration with ICESSPOOL, has begun a roll out of the iCesspool Faecal Sludge and Bulk Water Supply Monitoring System with a mobile application which will increase household access to safe bulk water supply and pit emptying services within the Tamale Metropolis.
The system is designed to provide solution to decades-long household water and sanitation challenges in Tamale, which includes difficult access to pit emptying services, unregulated disposal of faecal sludge, unguided service charge for pit emptying services and unsafe supply of bulk water (tanker) to homes.
The Tamale Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Sule Salifu, at the launch of the application, said the Metro offers a unified solution to challenges of water and sanitation by linking households to receive safe pit emptying and bulk water supply services within the Tamale Metropolis in the comfort of their homes while also exposing their service providers (operators) to citywide customers through a mobile application.
“The Assembly can now track sanitation services rendered to the public and operator routes within the city to ensure conformity to the Metro by-laws and eliminate incidence of citywide indiscriminate dumping of faecal sludge,” he disclosed.
According to him, the Assembly has a monitoring dashboard hosted at the Waste Management Department which houses a database of all pit emptying trucks and water supply operators registered for service, adding “we entreat the good people of Tamale to utilise the service by downloading the iCesspool-Tamale App on Play Store and channel all service needed.”
“Non-smartphone users are not left out. Just call the Metro hotline on 050-1330-430. Only your Digital Address will be required to get service delivered to your location at a fair and affordable cost. With this we are leaving no one behind the access curve,” he explained.
The Tamale MCE reminded the public that they are to engage the services of only authorised agents of the Assembly to carry out waste management services in accordance with the Assembly’s by-laws.
He commended the support of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), UNICEF, and International Water Management Institute (IWMI) for providing the technical and financial support in making the dream of transforming Tamale into the first Sanitation Smart City in Africa a reality.
The founder of ICESSPOOL Platform, Ing Dominic Aboagye, noted that communities are put at risk when untreated wastewater and faecal sludge pollute sources of water and it’s used for irrigation of food crops, drinking or consuming such products often perpetuates a cycle of infections.
He indicated that ICESSPOOL Platform has supplied all registered operators under the system with personal protective equipment to enable them to carry out their activities safely as well as giving all operators brand new phones to enable easy access to the online platform.
“We have equipped the Metro Compliance Monitoring Team with safety boots and reflector jackets to enforce the use of the platform and undertake public education,” he stressed.
Ing Aboagye disclosed that the operators have agreed to relinquish 10% of each service charge to the Assembly to support environmental sanitation activities as well as the maintenance of the system.
“We estimate that through this remittances the Assembly can rake in over GH¢150,000.00 every year to support sanitation and waste management activities,” he stated.
BY Eric Kombat, Tamale