Accra Metro Head acclaimed by youth group

Ashiedu Keteke Youth Forum, has commended Dr Alfred Oko Vanderpuiye, Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), for his efforts to rid the city of filth, which is the source of the cholera outbreak in the metropolis.

A statement issued in Accra on Wednesday, by the spokesman of the Forum, Mr Joseph Nii Lante Lamptey, praised the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and the MCE for the bold attempt and hard work against all odds to ensure a clean and healthy capital befitting its status as the gateway to Ghana.

The AMA has over a month been engaged in a massive cleanup exercises in various parts of the city, which had been engulfed with garbage.

As part of the exercise last week, the AMA demolished Mensah Guinea, a slum behind the Accra and La Magistrate Courts at the Community Centre and Arts Centre to rid the area of insanitary conditions, since the community has been fingered as the source of cooked foods being sold by hawkers in the business district of the national capital.

The Youth Forum noted that insanitary conditions at the slum was a major contributory factor to the cholera outbreak in the city with about 1,500 reported cases and 30 deaths at Mensah Guinea and Ashiedu Keteke this year.

Mr Lamptey stated that even though squatters, homeless and other vulnerable people have rights, they cannot override those of society and the public at large.

“Their rights cannot supersede public morality, health, security and interest,” he said and urged Dr Vanderpuije to continue the initiative to make Accra a healthy place to live in without fear or favour.

The spokesman expressed concern about the high level of criminal activities including prostitution in the area, adding that Mensah Guinea had become the stable for illegal immigrants, who should not be allowed to have their own way and hold society to ransom.