Some onion traders at work at Dominase
AMA ATTA sits under her makeshift shed at the Dominase Onion Market beside a truck load of onions. With a locally made straw hat seated over her head to shield her from the scotching sun, she goes through a sack of onions,carefully selecting them into various baskets in order of sizes.
“This big basket goes for GH¢50 but I will reduce it to GH¢45 for you,” she says as she solicits the interest of customers who visit her shed.
On a good market day, Ama Atta indicates she is able to sell five sacks of onions. “We have not been here for long but we are able to have good sales on market days,” she admits with a giggle. “Sometimes, I am able to make about GH¢500 in profit.”
She says the market has become her source of livelihood since her decision to venture into the onion trade, a year ago.
“I was a petty trader in the community until the onion sellers came here so I decided to join them to sell onions and I have not regretted it,” she adds.
The Dominase Onion Market was non-existent until a year ago when onion traders at the Agbogbloshie market in Accra were relocated as part of a decongestion exercise by the local authorities.
The creation of the market,which now hosts about 1000 traders, in the Gomoa Dominasearea of the Gomoa East District of the Central Region,is a fallout from that exercise.
Ama Atta says although the market has a potential for growth,the lack of proper sanitation and water facilities is a major issue.
“Hmm, it is one of our big problems here. We do not have a proper place to go when nature calls,” she laments. “Water is also a problem for us.”
The only toilet facility the traders use at the market is owned by a private individual who charges between GH¢1 and GH¢2 per use.
The 20-seater toilet facility (10 each for male and female traders) is located about 200 meters from the market and is poorly maintained.
A foul smell emanates from the toilet cubicles as people make their way inside. Poor lighting and ventilationalso makes accessibility difficult for patrons.
This situation forces some of the traders, truck drivers, drivers’ mates, and head porters as well as patrons of the market to use other unhygienic means for their daily Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) needs.
“We do not have a choice, we are forced to go there or find our own way out,” says a trader who prefers to be identified as, Mama Africa.
She believes that the building of additional toilet facilities and the provision of potable sources of water will safeguard their health and boost trading activities in the market.
“We know how important sanitation is to our health so without a proper toilet facility, we risk getting sick,” she laments.
“We know this place is new, but we pay tax to the Gomoa East District Assembly so, they should help us… more people will come and buy from us if we have these facilities,” she adds.
Leader of the Dominase Onion Traders, Chief Alhaji Ali Fuseini, confirmed the traders are grappling with numerous challenges, including poor sanitation which exposes them to illnesses like cholera or diarrhea.
“When we came here, the land was bare, there was no shed like you are seeing now; we had to do everything on our own,” he says.
He opines that the traders had to come together and pay for their own boreholes to be dug as there was no source of potable water in the area.
“If you look at this big place, we have only one toilet facility operated by a private person and we have to pay anytime we want to use the place,” he says.
Alhaji Fuseini said due to the huge number of people who use the lone toilet facility in the market, the care takers are unable to keep its interior clean and hygienic.
Statistics show that sanitation crisis persists in developing countries despite years of global efforts to address the situation.
For instance, the main target of the Millennium Development Goal(MDG) 7is to ensure improved sanitation coverage with a strong link to issues such as the environment, public health and human dignity.
However, the MDG Goal 7 was not fully met, hence, its recapture by Goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure available and sustainablemanagement of water, and sanitation for all.
It also calls for the provision of adequate and equitable sanitation to end open defecation by 2030.
Countries such as Ghana have signed on to the SDGs and pledged their commitment to ensuring that proper sanitation, a right of citizens, including that of the Dominase onion traders, are upheld.
According to the World Bank, 2020 WASH report, just over half (54 per cent) of the world population had access to safely managed sanitation.
It states that around 6 per cent do not have any sanitation facilities at all and instead have to practise open defecation.
In Ghana, only 28 per cent of the urban population has access to at least a basic sanitation facility, says the World Bank Report.
Further statistics from WaterAidGhana reveals that the country’s improved sanitation coverage has not exceeded 15 per cent.
This means that only 15 in every 100 Ghanaians have access to sanitation facilities and services, while the rest are left defenceless against the inevitable consequences.
Gilbert Asante, Policy and Advocacy Programme Officer, WaterAid Ghana, says there is generally poor access to sanitation services in Ghana.
He adds that going to toilet in the open is a major contributor to diseases like cholera, which swept through the country in 2014 during a devastating flash flood, affecting 30,000 people.
The Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources also in a report discloses that the country spends a whopping US$290 million, representing 1.6 percent of her GDP, on programmes aimed at addressing poor sanitation every year.
Chief Alhaji Fuseini wants the Gomoa East District Assembly toprovide theonion traders with proper sanitation facilities and demarcation of the area.
“We do not want to replicate indiscriminate putting up of structures as was the case at Agbogbloshie. So, in consultation with the District Assembly, we will work on the demarcations,” he said.
The Gomoa East District Assembly, headed by the District Chief Executive, Solomon Darko Quarm, says plans are advanced to establish an advanced sanitation facility for the onion traders.
BY Jamila Akweley Okertchiri