THE ACCRA Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) is likely to lose a $10 million World Bank grant for the construction of the Kwabenya Landfill project if it does not take immediate steps to utilise the funds.
The money, equivalent to about ¢92 billion, was allocated to the Assembly in 2004 and has since been lying dormant in the accounts of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment.
Consequently, the World Bank has threatened to take back the fund if the AMA does not utilise it for the project by the close of next month (March).
Residents of Agyemankata, the community near the Kwabenya Landfill project site, have over the years staged series of demonstrations to oppose the location of a landfill in the area.
Report reaching this paper indicate that by March this year, there is no way the AMA can continue to dump garbage at the Oblogo dumping site and although a search for an alternative site has been found at Weija, that place can last for only two years.
An official of the Assembly, who wants to remain anonymous, confirmed this to this reporter that “the Weija site is temporary”.
“It is not likely that we can even start dumping garbage at the Weija site since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not completed the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report”, he charged.
“The AMA is now in a fix, aware of the impending difficulties ahead, but with very little time to act”, he suggested, appealing to the EPA to hasten the EIA report to enable the Assembly to go ahead with the construction of the Weija site.
According to him, if this does not happen, solid waste management in the metropolis in the next two months would be extremely difficult as there would be no place to dump garbage, stressing that this may have a disastrous effect on the sanitation situation in the city.
Contracted, the Project Co-ordinator for the second phase of the Urban Environmental and Sanitation Project (UESP), Mr Daniel Ohene Aidoo, attributed the delay in utilising the fund to teething problems relating to the construction of the landfill at Kwabenya.
He said the AMA could not afford to let go of such a huge amount, stressing that “if this money is withdrawn, it will be a disaster to the AMA and the government. AMA is actually sitting on a public health time bomb”.
“Ghana is 50 years and its capital cannot even boast of an engineered landfill site”, Mr Aidoo said, pointing out that the residents have vigilante groups attacking virtually anyone who attempted to even visit the project site.
Among the various people that have suffered this fate are the Mayor of Accra, Mr Stanley Nii Adjiri-Blankson, whose vehicle was nearly vandalised when he visited the site; Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama who was also allegedly booed by some organised school- children.
The need for an engineered landfill site for Accra was identified in 1991 and the Kwabenya site selected in 1993. Feasibility studies were carried out in 1997 and Messrs Taywood Engineering designed the landfill in the same year with funding from DFID and the Accra Waste Project (AWP).
Under the AWP programme,certain basic aspects of the design referred to as enabling works was carried out between 2000 and 2001 at a cost of £3 million.
A school and access roads were constructed for the community to improve on infrastructural facilities for the people for the sitting of the landfill project in the area. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) had already been carried out.
What brought about the abrupt end of the project in August 2001, was when news went round that several buildings would be demolished to facilitate the completion of the project, which resulted in some of the residents resolving not to allow a landfill project in their backyard.
For close to 15 years now, the project has been on hold while the Assembly struggle
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