He said the Authority would have a supporting Sanitation Fund that would make financial resources readily available for its activities.

He said the draft policy had made provision for the establishment of a dedicated enforcement team to be known as National Sanitation Brigade that would ensure compliance with sanitation laws and regulations.

The policy is currently before Cabinet awaiting approval he said.

Mr Adda made this known at the Meet-the-Press encounter in Accra, on Thursday.

The Government, he said, would soon launch a total sanitation campaign strategy that would rally the entire citizens to get involved in making the country clean.

‘‘This would be spread throughout the country and penetrate the entire strata of Ghanaian society down to the lowest level and to get everyone involved in the national drive to make our nation clean,’’ he said.

The Minister noted that an assessment of the entire value chain of the sanitation sector had been done with the view to restructuring it to ensure efficient operations.

Mr Adda said upon extensive consultations with various stakeholders, the right architecture and operational modalities had been developed in order to deliver the President’s agenda of making Ghana clean and the national capital, Accra, the cleanest city in Africa.

He said waste was a resource, therefore, the government was in consultation with various investors to process waste into value added by-product such as energy, compost fertilizer and recycled plastics and paper.

He said the Ministry was awaiting approval of funds to expand the supply of water to rural areas in order to deliver the ‘‘water for all’’ agenda of Government.

The drilling of boreholes was ongoing and more funds had been earmarked to further expand access to water to rural communities, he said.

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Source: GNA

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According to the sector minister, Joseph Kofi Adda, the Authority will help to effectively tackle the country’s sanitation problem, which has over the years proven to be a difficulty for successive governments.

[contextly_sidebar id=”XTfB9xCh9LsAWzYCuoxt2sRm6WXrq2lN”]Speaking at a ceremony to launch Jekora Ventures Limited (JVL) Fortifer Compost Plant on Thursday, Joseph Kofi Adda said addressing the sanitation challenge of the country was a priority of the Akufo-Addo government.

He said his outfit was committed to revising the country’s sanitation policy to make it cleaner.

“Environmental sanitation is one of our top priority, it is in line with this that the President has declared that we make Accra one of the cleanest cities in Africa. We are currently in the process of revising the environmental sanitation policy to make it more responsive to the rapidly changing focus of the needs of the people.”

He added that “A policy is being developed to get a bill in Parliament where we can set up a National Sanitation Authority to be dedicated to managing the sanitation functions of our country. The National Sanitation Authority will have a director general at the national level, the regional level, and the district level. They will then work with the District management team especially the Chief Executives to ensure that we are able to focus on this job and manage it more effectively.”

The idea of the creation of a National Sanitation Policy was earlier suggested by the Executive Secretary of the Environmental Sanitation Providers Association (ESPA), Ama Ofori-Antwi, who said on Eyewitness News that Ghana’s sanitation problems can best be addressed when the government takes serious steps to enforce the country’s sanitation by-laws, noting that there was the need for the creation of a sanitation authority to coordinate efforts of all sanitation stakeholders to ensure that the cities are clean.

President Akufo-Addo while addressing a durbar of Chiefs and people of Ngleshie Alata Traditional Area at Jamestown to honour him, promised to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa by the end of his tenure in office.

“The commitment I want to make, and for all of us to make, is that by the end of my term in office, Accra will be the cleanest city on the entire African continent. That is the commitment I am making,” he said.

Meanwhile, series of news reports gathered by Citi News in the last week shows that there is a worsening sanitation crisis in the nation’s capital, Accra with city authorities struggling to deal with the situation.

Sections of major roads in the capital have been taken over by filth, usually dumped there by residents in nearby areas. The problem reveals an apparent inability of the relevant bodies to effectively manage waste generated in the capital especially those generated domestically.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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