Massive clean-up exercise heralds 63rd anniversary celebration

The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has led a massive clean-up exercise to tidy up the city in preparation of the commemoration of Ghana’s 63rd independence anniversary.

Kumasi, Ghana’s oldest and second-largest city, hosts this year’s celebration for the first time in the country’s history - scheduled for the 42,000 capacity Baba Yara Sports Stadium.

“Consolidating our Gains,” is the theme for the celebration, and the Special Guest is Dr. Keith Christopher Rowley, the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.

According to the Anniversary Planning Committee, the decision to host the 63rd edition in the “Garden City” was in line with the government’s policy of rotating the annual Independence Day Parade across the various regions.

The six-hour exercise saw various stakeholders, including the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), traders, students, identifiable youth groups, assembly-members and civil society organizations trim overgrown trees and also evacuating heaped refuse dumps.

They also cleared the choked drainage system and the pavement of plastic waste.

Mr. Osei Assibey-Antwi, the Mayor of Kumasi, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), on the sideline of the programme, said the authorities were determined to give a good impression about the city as the nation marked her independence anniversary celebration.

The massive clean-up, he said, was also designed to create public awareness on the Sustainable Development Goal Six - which placed much emphasis on clean water and sanitation.

“We cannot achieve our objectives unless the citizenry work together,” the Mayor advised.

The haphazard dumping of refuse, he added, ought to be a thing of the past, warning that the Assembly would not countenance any indiscipline on the part of the residents.