MDGs Target:Director Seeks More Sanitary Inspectors

Governments at all levels
must deploy more sanitary inspectors, if Nigeria must meet the sanitation target of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
The Director, Department of Disaster Management and Water and Sanitation, Federal Ministry of Health, Mr John Kehinde, said this recently in an interview with newsmen
“The Federal Government, the state governments and the local governments have to wake up, if we want to attain the MDG goals by 2015.
“There is the need to employ more sanitary inspectors to take charge of our environment.
“Abuja initially was estimated to have a population of about 680,000, but today, we have about 2.8 million to three million people living in Abuja and less than 10 qualified sanitary inspectors in the city.
“The World Health Organisation projection says one sanitary inspector to 8,000 people; Nigeria is estimated to be about 177 million people and we have less than 7,000 officers.”
Kehinde decried the ratio of one sanitary inspector to about 100,000 people in Nigeria, saying that it fell far short of the global sanitary standards.
The director noted that environmental health, which is one of the oldest professions in the country dating back to 1920, had less than 7,000 officers currently, blaming the situation on the non-replacement of retired staff.
He recalled how effective the sanitary inspectors were in their work of combating diseases during the colonial period,  by making sure that people complied with the rules of sanitation.
“Our function is routine inspection; the first people to detect and prevent disease are the environmental health officers popularly sanitary inspectors.
“During the colonial times, these sanitary inspectors had areas they covered every day; they entered households to inspect even their utensils.’’
The director said that the Environmental Health Officers Registration Council (EHORECON), was trying its best in organising mandatory courses for all the existing sanitary inspectors nationwide.
Kehinde, therefore, urged the government to employ more people so that the department could achieve its mandate.

Submerged houses on Azinge Crescent, GRA, Benin City after a down pour recently