Plans afoot to revamp Kpone landfill site – Minister assures residents

The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Ishmael Ashitey, has said plans are far advanced to give the Kpone landfill site in the Tema Metropolis of the Greater Accra Region a facelift to address the serious health threat it poses to residents.

Addressing some aggrieved youth in the community on Friday, the Minister said his outfit recognizes the enormity of challenges at the dumping site and assured them work would soon commence at the site to address their plights.

“Government is deeply concern about your predicament, but let me assure you that after all the necessary technical works have been concluded, all your challenges will be addressed.

“We have acted on your concerns because contract has already been awarded so what is left is for the contractor to mobilize and start work,” the Minister stressed.

A group calling itself the Kpone Organised Youth for Development in the community have threatened to sue government and the Ministry of Sanitation for taking away their rights as residents to live in harmony with their environment if the Kpone landfill site is not shut down immediately.

The youth therefore embarked on a demonstration on Monday, 9 March 2020 to force government to shut down the site immediately.

Against that backdrop, Mr Ashitey urged the youth not to engage in any self-destructive acts that could disturb the peace of the community following reports that some youth groups were planning a demonstration.

The Minister indicated that steps would be taken to manage the facility properly to avoid any outbreak of an epidemic in the community.

The Tema Sanitary Landfill site, which is the only Engineered Landfill facility in the Greater Accra Region was commissioned in January 2013, and is designed to receive 500 tonnes of refuse per day.

However, due to inadequate number of disposal facilities within the Greater Accra Metropolitan area, close to 1,000 tonnes of refuse is dumped daily at the site.