Sanitation improves at Tema Site One

Tema, Oct 1, GNA - Site One in Tema Community One is the closest of the sites to the central business district of the metropolis. The residents are petty traders, artisans, tradesmen and professionals and Site One is said to be the oldest built to accommodate workers engaged in the building of the other communities. Over the years the site has grown big and has attracted a larger population with attendant benefits and problems. On the positive side the people are very religious. Whether Muslims or Christians, the people do not play with their God. The people are united and it is difficult for criminals to infiltrate. Thieves cannot easily operate there because the people are always alert to expose criminals and there is a sense of belongingness as residents have come from different areas of the nation of Ghana to form a cosmopolitan society.

As the fasting period for Muslims drew to a close, Muslims at the Site last Sunday gave the place a thorough clean up. Early Sunday morning the people, following an earlier announcement by Chief Ibrahim Bancey, Chief of the Bisa community, with the support of Mr Asumah Danlardi, Assemblyman for Padmore Electoral Area, came out in their numbers and undertook a four-hour clean up exercise.

With brooms, shovels, rakes and wheel barrows the residents cleaned the main streets, swept, opened concrete slabs over gutters, de-silted the gutters and stagnant water flowed. Chief Bancey told the GNA that the period of Ramadan enjoined Muslims to rid themselves of any contamination. The clean up was therefore a physical demonstration of the desire to be holy as Muslims sought the face of Allah.

Chief Bancey said people should not think it is the responsibility of the government to keep their surroundings clean with the excuse that they pay levies to government bodies. "Government would not suffer health risks if our surroundings are not clean. The community that neglects its surroundings will be the victims of environmental uncleanliness. Environmental cleanliness is a way of getting closer to God," Chief Bancey said. He added: "God is a very clean person and those who want to get to him must be clean. Filth separates man from God. Islam says unclean people are far from God." The Assemblyman, Mr Danlardi, appealed to the Tema Metropolitan Assembly to readily support the exercises with vehicles to collect refuse.