People & Places: The secret to how Assin Kushea became Ghana's cleanest town

Nana Prah Agyensaim VI, the Paramount Chief of the Owirenkyi Traditional Area, knew one thing from the moment he ascended the throne: he could not match up to other paramountcies, but he could be different.

And being different, for him, meant that he needed to do something unique, and that was where all of the things that have now led to Assin Kushea - his town, becoming the cleanest city in Ghana, came about.

In this journey with the resourceful traditional ruler, Etsey Atisu, the host of People & Places on GhanaWeb TV, sits down on the compound of the Assin Kushea Palace, regarded as the biggest in West Africa, as Nana Prah Agyensaim detailed his story.

One thing is significant in all of these: Nana realised that he could make the impact he wanted to make and capitalise on an inherent Ghanaian way of life to solve a big problem - sanitation.

“We as Ghanaians had the tradition of throwing leaves away, when we used to eat from leaves… after you finish eating, the natural thing to do is throw the leaves away. In those days, it didn’t matter because the leaves would decompose. So, we were not littering, but the habit of throwing had been ingrained in us.

“So, when this creature called plastic came, we put our food in the plastic, after eating, we throw it away because that is the habit that we had inculcated in us. So, my problem was to stop the throwing away,” he said.

Nana Prah Agyemsaim VI also spoke about all the motivations that made him build the majestic Kushea Palace, which is today, a tourist destination for many.

Watch his full interview with GhanaWeb’s Etsey Atisu in this episode of People and Places below:



This article was originally published by GhanaWeb in November 2023, it has only been republished solely for educational purposes