Ministry moves to address slum challenges

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has fashioned out a Slum Upgrading and Prevention Strategy to address challenges in shanty towns across the country.

Mr Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, stated this at the commemoration of the 2014 World Habitat Day in Accra, on the theme: “Voices from slums: ensuring a healthy development”.

He said the strategy would help guide all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to address challenges in slums and therefore tasked all MMDAs to get the profile of slums in their jurisdictions by the end of October, to enable the Ministry to provide the needed support.

He said the Ministry had also instituted a number of measures to enhance environmental sanitation in all MMDAs, such as the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area Sanitation, the Community Upgrading Projects, the Ghana-Netherlands WASH programme and the Community Led Total Sanitation Approach.

Mr Vanderpuye said the construction of modern bio-fill toilet facilities in households was recently unveiled by the Ministry and urged all MMDA’s to take advantage of the initiative and encourage households to have access to the facilities.

Mr Samson Ahi, Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, said the Ministry was very much concerned with the issue of urbanization and had recently presented a draft housing policy to cabinet for approval to solve urban housing challenges.

He said under the policy, government would set up a National Housing Authority to supervise the provision of decent houses as well as the setting up of a National Housing Fund to support small income earners to put up their houses.

He urged all stakeholder to work together to eliminate slums across the country.

Madam Janet Adu, a slum dweller at Ashaiman, called on government and other stakeholders to consult the slum dwellers to make inputs into policies and other projects that affected them.