Kumasi gets modern waste management facility

Kumasi, April 23, GNA- The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has completed the construction of a four million-dollar modern waste management facility at Dompoase, a suburb of Kumasi.

The 100-acre landfill project with modern waste management facilities that would help reduce the stench from the site is capable of containing all the solid and liquid waste generated in the Kumasi metropolis for the next 15 years.

China Water and Electric Company, a Chinese construction firm, used two years to complete the project, which was jointly financed by the World Bank, Government of Ghana and the KMA.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency after inspecting the project, Mr Maxwell Kofi Jumah, KMA Chief Executive, said the facility which was the first of its kind in the country, had given the assembly a permanent site to dump waste generated in the metropolis.

He said the facility had machines that sprayed the site against houseflies, mosquitoes and the stench around the surrounding communities.

It also had an electronic weighing machine that enabled the assembly to measure the exact tonnage of waste materials generating in the city everyday.

Mr Jumah said the assembly in collaboration with the Department of Parks and Gardens and the Forestry Services Division, had engaged about 60 youngsters in the area to plant trees around the project site to serve as a buffer forest that would help reduce the stench from the facility.

He announced that three companies from Germany and Canada were currently in negotiations with the assembly to establish recycling plants at the site to generate electricity and also reduce some of the cost incurred in waste collection and disposal in the city. Mr Jumah said another company had also expressed interest to pick all the plastic waste materials and recycle them at the site. He said all the necessary measures had been put in place to protect the environment in the area.

Mr Jumah also inspected the Atonsu S-line road, which is under construction and met the leadership of the Atonsu-Agogo Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) on the relocation of the Agogo lorry station to the Atonsu market.

He said the relocation was necessary to ease the severe traffic congestion in the area.

The drivers agreed to relocation and appealed to the KMA to provide streetlights, passenger sheds and proper access roads to the new station.