This is the belief of the owner of the biggest sanitation company in Ghana, Zoomlion Company Limited.

In his words, “When you look on the streets now, everywhere is clean, everywhere is neat. I said neat because you have not moved to other African countries. When you move to Gambia and other places and you come back to Accra, you think that Accra is the new London.”

Meanwhile, Sanitation Minister Kofi Adda, the man tasked with the enormous job of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa has decided to engage in a blame game for the filthy stinky Accra we call Ghana’s capital. At one of the numerous forums organized on addressing sanitation issues in the country, he blamed Zoomlion for reneging on their responsibility to sweep the streets and collect the refuse every day.

He lamented further about his disappointment that everywhere was engulfed in filth.

Ah! As if what we needed from a Sanitation Minister was an expression of disappointment about our dirty streets, a problem he has been tasked to deal with.

This government led by Nana Akufo Addo has demonstrated its abhorrence for the filth around us and its commitment to clean Ghana with the setting up of a Ministry of Sanitation (the first in the history of Ghana). But largely, all that has been done to a clean Ghana so far has been talk, talk and some more talk.

Almost every week, forums are held by various bodies, and sanitation policies and strategies are repeated again and again. Indeed, if talks were what we needed to rid Accra of filth, Ghana would have accomplished this a long time ago and our streets would be spotless.

Sadly, that isn’t the case. It’s clear we don’t need any more talk, but action. At one of the several forums, it was revealed that this country has over 100 policies on sanitation. So really, what do we hope to achieve with these relatively needless talks?

On paper, the over 200 Municipal, Metropolitan and District Assemblies have by-laws that should ensure the various MMDAs are clean; it should not have to take the President to declare an agenda to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa.

For example, the third Saturday of every month is supposed to be observed as the “Health Day” under the AMA by-laws. But until the then Local Government Minister declared the first Saturday of every month a Sanitation Day, the Health Day remained only in theory for a better part of the years.

The by-laws have other fantastic regulations to help keep the city clean. Unfortunately, that is how far we have gone in keeping Ghana clean; we only enact the laws, take no action or pretend to take a little action.

The President went ahead to launch his government’s sanitation campaign. At the launch, he announced that all government departments and agencies will designate two officers each as sanitation marshals who will oversee compliance with sanitation laws in their various offices. The President didn’t only make the announcement; he gave timelines too. The heads of the various departments had one week, from the day of the launch, to identify and assign these officers who were to receive training from the Environmental Health and Sanitation Directorate.

President Akufo-Addo also served notice that Ministers and other directors of government agencies will be held accountable for any lapses in compliance with these directives.

It’s been four months and counting…

In the meantime, all of the country’s public places continue to be inundated with filth. Market women sell fresh fruits, fish and vegetables, among other things, close to heaps of refuse. A significant number of the gutters in the capital are choked. For many Ghanaians, the lack of landfill sites means their refuse is dumped directly into open drains and open spaces.

The lack of landfill sites is probably the government’s biggest challenge in tackling this sanitation menace, but this also presents the perfect opportunity to device other innovative means to turn our waste problem around. This is a government that has promised to build factories in all 216 districts across the country. A few private individuals are basically squeezing water out of stones to run recycling factories – Safisana and Fibrewealth easily come to mind. These two recycling companies and a few more can create millions of cedis each day from recycling alone with the right amount of support.

A UNICEF report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ranks Ghana the seventh worst country in the world with regards to access to basic sanitation. The bigger problem here is that about 7,332 basic schools in the country do not have toilet facilities. This means the thousands of school pupils in basic schools are accustomed to defecating in the open. This is the root of our problem. Children grow up with the mindset of finding their own means when nature calls.

I have seen and heard more than enough stories that show our sanitation problem is intrinsic. If not, how does the EL Wak Stadium in Accra suddenly turn into a mini landfill site when thousands of job seekers throng there? These are people, who have had, at the very least, some basic education. And you know how huge the problem is when you spot a university student carelessly dropping a can into a dustbin clearly marked “plastic” on a university campus. These are not just fabrications. These have really happened and continue to happen every day. Once I walked up to police officers at the Adentan Police station and asked to use the washroom. A policewoman sharply retorted, “just go down there and sort yourself out.” Interestingly, there was no washroom “down there”.

What can be done?

It was refreshing to hear the president announce that “every day is sanitation day”. And indeed, every day is actually “sanitation day” since Accra alone generates about 2,800 tonnes of waste daily.

But introducing new sanitation policies every new day isn’t the magic potion to our problem. A chunk of the solution can be found in these words of the former President, Jerry John Rawlings who has been appointed a sanitation ambassador by the AMA, “You are lucky the position given to me is just a ceremonial one. If I was acting in the actual capacity, I would jail about three to five people a week till Accra becomes clean again”. Yes, the law enforcers should punish people who freely break the sanitation laws. Let sanitation offenders be handed non-custodial sentences. Let the public see offenders sweeping the markets, or desilting the gutters etc. This will come at very little cost to us as a people but will go a long way to help solve Ghana’s sanitation problem; much of which is attitudinal.

At a recent program, the president said our biggest challenge as a people, was poverty. But Mr President, I beg to differ. Our biggest challenge as a people is sanitation.

A clean city is a clean and healthy people. A clean and healthy people is a wealthy city. Enough of the talking. Let’s act.
–
By: Eugenia Tenkorang/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Eugenia writes: Talking our way to a cleaner Accra appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.