AMA to re-introduce "Pay-as-you-dump"

Mr Charles Parker-Allotey, the Public Relations Officer of Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), said on Monday that the Assembly is contemplating re-introducing "the pay as you dump" scheme on rubbish collection in the city.

It is also considering a change in the way residents in Accra would pay for dumping their rubbish.

"The cost of services have gone up and AMA is not able to generate as much revenue as needed on rubbish collection even though the Ministry of Local Government is helping with funds for sanitation" he said.

Mr Parker-Allotey explained that garbage piled up in Accra because AMA owed refuse contractors about 18 billion cedis. He said that last year alone, AMA paid 33.5 billion cedis on rubbish collection in the city and it would have to pay the same for this year.

With such a huge amount of money going towards rubbish collection alone, AMA cannot afford to attend to other pressing matters, Mr. Parker-Allotey said. He said AMA had, however, started paying its debts in bits to be able to sustain the central container system. Rubbish collected in the system accounts for about 80 percent of the trash in Accra. Most of this rubbish comes from highly-populated, low-income areas. The other 20 per cent of garbage is collected house-to-house.