Government's performance on sanitation disappointing - MP

The Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Environment, Science and Technology has described as “stinky” the assertion by the government that it is 85 per cent through to making Accra the cleanest city in Africa.

Ebenezer Okletey Terlabi said a walk through almost every part of the capital city reveals it is engulfed with filth.

He, therefore, wondered the basis on which the Sanitation Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, rate the sanitation issues in the city.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on assuming office in the year 2017, declared his government’s intention of making Ghana’s capital the cleanest on the African continent by the end of his first term.

Three and half years down the lane, the Minister for Sanitation has rated the performance in the sector 85 per cent, thereby indicating that Accra has only 15% to be fully cleaned.

Speaking to the media as part of a sanitation tour and clean-up exercise in parts of Maamobi in Accra on Tuesday, the Sanitation Minister said that 100 per cent was achieved during the lockdown period in the wake of the Covid-19.

“When we don’t do these things, throw garbage into the drains, the drains will be clearer, neater and our homes also will be clean because the Assembly will send the Abobyaa’s (tricycles) round to pick the waste that is what we want. We endorse the One-house One-bin policy,” Madam Abena Dapaah said.

“I will give it 85 per cent because at the end of the day you saw the 100 per cent we did during the lockdown. So who makes Accra dirty? That is why every day we are sensitizing people. I insist we are 85 per cent.”

Reacting to the issue on Wednesday on Onua TV’s Maakye hosted by Bright Kwasi Asempa and Adwoa Konadu-Yiadom, Mr Okletey Terlabi said “it’s an eyesore. You are telling the whole of Ghana that we don’t know what is happening in the country and the environment”.

The Member of Parliament for Lower Manya Krobo Constituency in the Eastern Region added: “I am shocked she has put a percentage on it. Eighty-five per cent means you don’t have to see any debris in Accra. Maybe she is talking about different Ghana or different Accra because I don’t know what she is talking about”.

He said, “let us start from the Korle Lagoon because what is happening in Ghana has its root from the Korle Lagon so we should go and look at the Korle”.

“Let go to Tema, Nima, Accra Central…go and look at the gutters choked with filth, what is she talking about?”

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The former Deputy Eastern Region Minister called on the government to support the waste management companies in the country because that is what can solve the problem.

“Cleanliness starts from you the individual but landfill sites and waste bins are also other problems because the government has refused to pay waste management companies and that has contributed to it.”

Mr Terlabi said “government must support waste management companies. I am at Kanda now. I look at left and write and filth is all over”.