AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ASOKORE MAMPONG MUNICIPAL ASSEMBLY

TO WHOMEVER IT MAY CONCERN

Dear Sir or Madam,

It is my prayer that you and your staff are doing excellent in all your endeavours. May God bless you for your massive contribution to the development of our dear nation. Do pardon me if I have skipped any protocol. Let me go straight to the point.

The reason for writing to you this letter is simple; the state of some and or all of your washrooms. It is not pleasant to say but they are in such pathetic states. Someone I know and respect a lot paid a visit to your Assembly and the scene that met his eyes when he decided to use the washroom was a no no no. 

It is definitely someone's duty to clean the place and that janitor must also have a supervisor who probably also reports to someone else about the state of the washrooms and or other facilities in the Assembly. I hope that is right? If yes, then a lot of people are being paid for work they don't do and that is an injustice of a kind. You may want to deal with that matter in the most beautiful of ways as soon as possible. If no, then the Assembly needs to realign its priorities. As much as we need clean offices to work in, we need even cleaner washrooms. A janitor or janitors should be in the top part of our scale of preference as an organization, as an Assembly. We must simply have them, especially where we don't want to do the work ourselves.

Now, for a washroom to get to this state, we cannot blame only the janitor and the poor supervision of his work. We are fully right to blame the workers who use the place everyday as well. Take a careful look at this picture of the washroom that is tagged here. You may not want to look at it again after the first mistaken or curious glance. And that is because it could cause you to vomit or nauseate. That is how bad it is Sir or Madam. How do you then use the place so comfortably yourself to the point of directing a visitor to the place? It beats my mind.

Now, what has stained the closet so badly? I don't want to think about options. Plus, is it that the workers don't flush out the waste after taking care of themselves? Grown ups? And what measures have been taken to put an end to that bad habit? What really could be causing this problem? You must definitely have an idea. It is and will forever be true that being clean is not only about the cleaning resources at our disposal but it is also about our attitude towards cleanliness. You may have all the soaps, detergents, mop sticks, scrubbing brushes and more but if you have a negative attitude to cleanliness, we will still have a situation such as portrayed in the picture. We must also note that it is never a waste of resources to budget appropriately for cleaning items to ensure a clean and nice smelling work environment at all times.

If your workers understand that when one emits faecal matter or urine into the closet, it must be flushed out; we may not have gotten to this. If they understood that when one mistakenly pours water on the floor of the washroom, it must be mopped; we may not have gotten to this. If they understood that when one dirties the washroom with his feet or anything, he must clean it up; we may not have gotten to this. We will not get to a point where our washrooms are in such messy states if we understood these simple rules of cleanliness whether we have a janitor or not. 

Or wait! Is it that we are 'too big' to do any kind of cleaning no matter how meagre it is even if we caused them? That is not a very encouraging and praiseworthy attitude to have as people, educated people. I ever worked in an organisation where the accountant who comes to work a lot earlier than others sometimes does the cleaning himself. Yes! There were people to do that but if he was at work and they weren't in yet, he does the cleaning of the washrooms and the offices himself. Now, that is the positive attitude to cleanliness we are talking about. 

If we would not reduce the janitor's work by cleaning up some of our mess, at least we should call them after we have messed up to clean it up so that no one comes to meet such an unsightly situation - so that our washrooms do not become this messy over a short period of time. At least, all things being equal, you don't want even the janitor to come and flush your excreta for you. That is so so so bad, unhealthy and uncharacteristic of being educated people who are considered to know better when it comes to such things.

And wait! Is it that we put other things in the closet instead of excreta? Well, let me hold that bit here. I just want you to really take note that this is for a good cause. Let us see a change in our attitude to cleanliness. This letter is not only to you at the Assembly but to every person who will read this; we don't want this in our work places and we definitely don't want it in our homes.

Thank you for your time. Do pardon anything I have said that may not have gone down well with you. It is truly for a good cause.

Your Concerned Citizen

Signed

Rubaba Mmahajia Rahma Sabtiu-Morla