National Sanitation Day records poor turnout in Cape Coast

The first nationwide clean-up exercise for 2015, in line with the National Sanitation Day campaign, recorded poor turnout in the Cape Coast Metropolis, according to Ghana News Agency (GNA) checks.

Officials from the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly (CCMA), security agencies, youth groups and political parties who participated in previous exercises did not make any appearance in the exercise, the third since its introduction.

Aside a few residents in some suburbs of the metropolis who were spotted cleaning their neighbourhoods, nothing showed that such an exercise was taking place.

An assembly member, in an interview with the GNA on condition of anonymity, blamed the situation on the assembly’s inability to provide them with equipment as usually done since most electoral areas did not have their own equipment.

Some residents blamed their non-participation on unavailability of waste collection trucks to dispose of the rubbish when gutters were de-silted.

The GNA further observed that there was free vehicular movement unlike in previous ones where the CCMA blocked some principal streets to compel residents to take part in the exercise.

Resident went about their normal activities while some shops owners at the Central Business District waited patiently to open their shops after 1100 hours by which time the exercise would have ended.

Drains at Ntsin, a suburb of the metropolis, the Kotokuraba Market and the surroundings of the assembly block it was untidy.

Efforts to speak to Mrs Priscilla Arhin Korankye, Metropolitan Chief Executive on the phone was unsuccessful.

Mr Nicolas Addo, CCMA Public Relations Officer, told the GNA in a telephone interview that the Christmas holidays made the organisation of the exercise difficult, but the assembly, in collaboration with some churches, had planned to embark on the exercise on Sunday.

The National Sanitation Day exercise, launched last year, was expected to rekindle the spirit of communal labour in Ghanaians.