The Environmental Health Department of the Nkwanta South Municipal Assembly has planned to embark on a special exercise to arrest all stray animals off the streets within the assembly.
The exercise, which commences Thursday, September 16, 2021, would target ruminants like goats and sheep which have become a nuisance to the public.
This action has become necessary because these stray animals are causing environmental health hazards to the assembly.
The Environmental Health Officer for Nkwanta South, Madam Cynthia Sekyere, stated in an interview that, “persons who rear animals should be responsible and cater for their animals. If you feed them properly and give them a good sleeping place, the animals would remain confined and stop straying about”.
She cautioned animal owners that henceforth the assembly shall not pre-inform them ahead of a scheduled arrest of stray animals within the assembly.
Speaking to Angel news, Madam Sekyere said that beyond causing accidents, the stray animals also invade people’s homes, cause destruction to farms and food products and litter the environment with their droppings indiscriminately thus affecting the beauty of the environment.
Touching on how stray animals are handled, she noted that Section 300, Sub section 1-3 of Act 29 of the 1960 Criminal code empowers the assembly to auction such animals.
Additionally, the assembly has a feepaying system called “fee fixtures which stipulates how much a person should pay for an animal for a day, two, or three till the eleventh day of auctioning”.
The Environmental Health Officer further warned residents within the assembly to desist from burying dead relatives at home.
“It is a common practice in some of the communities within the Nkwanta South Municipality, with reference to the fact that it is a tradition that every first born of each family that dies should be buried in the home. When you are above 70 years or a royal, or affiliated to any of the gods and you die, you have to be buried in the home. Home burial has become common and no matter how much you try to educate them about [the health implications], they feel reluctant”.
In order to halt such practices, the assembly is charging anyone who wants to bury their relatives at home GHS3,000 but that hasn’t resolved the issue completely.
She recounted how a particular house has buried about 9 dead bodies in their home and are currently facing the full rigours of the law.
