By Telesha Ramnarine

THE Mayor and City Council’s (M&CC) Engineer’s Department is still plagued with the issue of residents and businesses connecting their soil or waste pipes to the City’s drainage system, instead of to the sewerage system.

The City Council had raised this issue back in 2016 and had even given property owners in Georgetown’s central business district 14 days to connect all pipes to the sewerage system. But just recently, City Engineer Colvern Venture said this is one of the challenges that his department is still enduring.

Speaking with reporters following a recent statutory meeting at City Hall, Venture disclosed that this practice by citizens has become more burdensome to deal with whenever there is flooding in the City.

“What we found is that persons actually have their waste pipes from the toilets flushing into the drainage system, instead of the sewerage system. These are behind the scene things that the public don’t see or are not aware of. But we have persons who have to go and face these things; faeces and stuff, just to bring relief to persons,” Venture expressed.
He called on residents to desist from disposing of their waste in the drains and waterways and noted the great challenge his department faces after cleaning an area but having to go back there one day later to meet the same amount of waste again.

“In preparation of the Ghana President visit, we cleared along Lombard Street just this weekend, when we visited there one day later, there is garbage; those vendors who would have sold their produce… we now have to go back and remove garbage from there. And that in itself is contributing to flooding in the City,” he pointed out.

CLOSED
Meanwhile, at least one Chinese restaurant was asked to close its doors, and several other major city businesses were under watch by City Hall for connecting their pipes to drains instead of to the City’s sewerage system.

In the past, City Hall officers, during a walk-about, complained of seeing raw faeces and toilet paper flowing down a nearby drain after a toilet was flushed in their presence.
A notice was placed in the press discouraging the practice, and Council had threatened to take action, including against those businesses that fail to have adequate fat/grease traps that eventually results in the blocking of drains.

The City Council had pointed out that this practice poses a number of dangers to Council workers, who would have to go into the drains to get them cleaned. Furthermore, it also affects thousands of people who usually have to tread through flood waters that would be

laced with raw faeces.
In the notice placed in the press, the M&CC said it wanted to prosecute all property owners who have their soil pipes and other related pipes (leading from water closets, baths and sinks) flowing into city drains.

“This is against the Georgetown Building Construction Public Health Provision Regulations, Section 19, which says, ‘Every new building shall be provided with such number of water closets, urinals, sinks, bath wastes or other sanitary conveniences in accordance with the Georgetown Sewerage Regulations, as may be required by the City Engineer,’” the M&CC had said.

The municipality had said it also wanted to move against property owners who have their roof gutter down-pipes draining directly into street drains and alleyways. “This is against the Georgetown Building By-law Municipal and District Councils Act, Chapter 28:01,” the M&CC said.