Kwahu West District Assembly organized clean-up exercise at Nkawkaw

Nkawkwaw, March 14, GNA - The Kwahu West District Assembly has organized a five-hour massive clean-up exercise at Nkawkaw, distilling gutters, swept markets, lorry parks, roads and scrubbed the butchers' shop. The exercise brought commercial activities to a halt as the market and shops were closed and vehicles were not allowed to operate during the five-hour period. The assembly bought 50 wheelbarrows, 130 pairs of Wellington boots, 80 shovels, 50 rakes and a quantity of gloves worth 75 million cedis for the exercise while the Ghana National Fire Service used their fire tenders to provide water to wash the gutters and the butchers' shops.

Briefing the media the District Chief Executive, Nana Kofi Kese, said the assembly would need 20 billion cedis to construct drains in the town to ensure free flow of water to avoid flooding and appealed to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, NGOs and donor agencies for assistance. He said due to the poor drainage system and the construction of buildings and structures on water ways, greater parts of the suburbs got flooded when it rains and warned that such unauthorised structures would soon be pulled down.

Nana Kese said the clean-up exercise would be organized every 40 days to improve sanitation and appealed to all residents to avoid dumping of refuse into the drains. He said the district is at the middle of the accident-prone area on the Accra/Kumasi highway and therefore there were plans to build a district hospital at Nkawkaw. The District Environmental Health Officer, Mr Sule Mohammed, commended the people for their massive turn-up and assured that a refuse truck and environmental staff would collect all the refuse removed from the gutters to the refuse dump. He appealed to storekeepers and officials of GPRTU to provide dustbins in front of their shops and lorry parks. Mr Mohammed also appealed to the chiefs in the district to release land for the construction of a permanent refuse disposal site to ensure proper disposal of refuse in the district.