Stakeholders engage on clean Accra

The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Mr Henry Quartey, has charged corporate institutions within the capital to bear some level of responsibility and support the sanitation campaign under the “Make Accra Work” project.

To this end, the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly will ensure that corporate bodies who leave their gutters choked and allow scrap dealers to operate on their frontages would be fined.

Mr Quartey made the call at a stakeholder meeting ahead of a decongestion exercise along the Accra-UTC road to the Obetsebi Lamptey Interchange which has been scheduled to take off on Tuesday, May 18.

Mr Quartey said for Accra to become the cleanest city in Africa, there was the need for corporate institutions to approach the “Make Accra work” project with a collective and positive mindset, adding that “we do not want you to sit in your offices and watch us work, we want you to be actively involved.”

Meeting

The meeting brought together key stakeholders including the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Mr Mohammed Nii Adjei Sowah, and his staff, representatives from the Ghana Armed Forces, the Ghana Immigration Service, the Ghana National Fire Service and the Motor Traffic and Transport Directorate (MTTD).

It was also attended by representatives from the Graphic Communications Group Limited and other corporate bodies within the demarcated areas where the decongestion exercise is scheduled to take place.

The corporate bodies were briefed on how the security agencies would carry out the operations on the scheduled date.

Also, issues such as sustainable plans and the role of the corporate bodies in ensuring that the campaign remained successful were also discussed.

Indiscipline

Mr Quartey expressed concern that indiscipline had taken centre stage in the region, hence the need to work together to ensure that the campaign was successful. He appealed to the organisations to support the government for the exercise to be successful.

He noted that after the decongestion exercise, the corporate bodies in the demarcated areas would bear the responsibility of ensuring that their environment “is kept clean.”

The minister further stressed the RCC’s commitment to provide lasting solutions to developmental challenges in the region to ensure its swift transformation into a national capital of repute.

He reiterated his call to the corporate institutions to lend their support to the “Make Accra Work” project and also play their individual roles in helping to make the country clean.

Other plans

Mr Quartey further revealed that plans were underway to move the yam sellers from the Agbogbloshie area to a new site as part of the decongestion exercise.

He said a meeting would be held with the yam sellers to explain to them the need for the relocation, after which they would be given time to move, but indicated that they would be ejected if they failed to comply with the directive to relocate.

“We will meet the yam sellers to discuss the need to move them from Agbogbloshie to a new site, but if they do not move after that, we will move them.”

For the scrap dealers, the Regional Minister noted that a designated location had been assigned for them and that dealers who operated outside the designated parameters would be sanctioned.

Background

Right after assuming office as the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Mr Quartey launched an audacious plan he intends to lead the charge to tackle the issues that have become a drawback to the region’s development.

He named the thematic areas he had set out to deal with the ‘Make Accra work’ project as sanitation, indiscipline, health and education.

The Regional Minister, among others, said he was going to lead the RCC, the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to spearhead the various campaigns such as dealing with the traffic congestion caused by indiscipline at strategic points, dealing with congestion in the central business districts and other areas.

Among the campaign is an “Operation Clean Your Frontage,” which would require that businesses in the region spend an hour a day to clean their environs.

Under the campaign, shop owners and traders would be obligated to clean their work areas at the beginning and end of each working day.

He said while organisations and institutions took responsibility of their environs, it was the shop owners and traders who usually did not see that as their responsibility, thus paid little attention to that.