No Place to Dump Refuse . . . Anxiety Grips AMA

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) is currently in a state of anxiety wondering where to relocate its refuse dump. This follows the decision by the youth of Oblogo, on the outskirts of Accra, not to release the parcel of land the assembly is vigorously pursuing to dump the waste materials it collects in the metropolis.

Already, tension is mounting on the assembly to vacate the current site at the Accra suburb of Gbawe after the regional Minister, Sheik Ibrahim C. Quaye, requested that the Assembly stopped using the Gbawe site. In a recent press statement, the AMA gave the impression that negotiations are far advanced to acquire a site a Oblogo to be used as refuse dump. In an interview last weekend, Nii Kwaku Bibini III, Chief of Oblogo, said the chiefs and elders are yet to take a decision on the Assembly's demand, considering the health implications among other things.

Chronicle can reveal that upon reading the AMA press statement indicating the quarry site at Oblogo was to be used as the new refuse dump of the metropolis, the youth of the town protested to the chief of the town. Nii Kwaku Bibini III told Chronicle he is reconsidering the idea of giving the land to the AMA, following the youth's agitation. The youth's protest emanated from the fact that the land at the quarry site wanted by the AMA for the refuse site serves as the only source of income for the Oblogo youth, most of whom are school drop outs. "The only work we do is to gather stones in the quarry and sell for money so we'll not agree.

In fact if they push us to the wall, something else will happen because the drivers who will bring the refuse would face hell," an aggressive youth told this reporter while the chief was listening. A cross section of the youth who conducted this reporter round the quarry site complained that apart from the threat it poses to their source of income, the refuse would pollute the Densu river since whenever it rains, water flows from that part of the land into the river