Health

Health alert: Achimota School to close down
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot

The Accra Metropolitan Authority (AMA) has ordered the immediate closure of Achimota School, and warned that the continued spillage of waste from the school's sewerage system poses a health danger to the students.

A letter to that effect, signed by Mr Jerry Thompson Amo of the Public Health Department of the AMA, has been delivered to the Headmistress of the school, Mrs Beatrice Adorn, after health inspectors found the situation on campus too dangerous to the health of the students.

Speaking on the issue, the headmistress said the problem had been caused by encroachers who continued to build on the school's land and consequently disrupting the sewerage system.

She said the encroachers had built on the main channels that carried human excreta to its central point of lodging, forcing the lines to crack hence the spillage of the faeces on the campus and on the main street.

A tour of the school revealed many cracks on the main lines with liquid waste and human excreta gushing out and emitting bad stench.

In spite of that, developers are busily constructing more houses on the giant pipes through, which the waste flows from the various points to the central lodging point, with some of the houses already completed and being occupied.

Occupants of some of the buildings and other neighbours the Daily Graphic spoke to only said the buildings belonged to some "big men" in the country; but would not elaborate further.

The headmistress told newsmen that the channel stretched from the Achimota Police Station to an area called the Folly.

Mrs Adorn said the issue of the encroachment was before the courts and that she could not comment further.

She, however, explained that the court had placed an injunction on the school from demolishing any building in that area, therefore the school authorities had little to do to salvage the situation.

She said because of the injunction, more people had started encroaching on the remaining land while others were also engaged in winning sand and moulding blocks.

Mrs Adorn said a lot of students had applied to enrol at Achimota School but could not be admitted because of lack of facilities, in spite of the fact that the school had a vast tract of land being encroached on because there was no money to develop it.

She said relocating the channels would cost the school several millions of Ghana cedis which the school could not afford and could also disrupt academic work.

Mrs Adorn said the school had a population of 1500 students, 3200 pupils at the primary level and 400 staff in addition to their dependants whose waste passed through the channels to the central lodging point at the Folly.

Ghanadot