Mr. Siaw Agyepong, among other things, noted that the enforcement of sanitation by-laws is very important adding that without it, President Akufo-Addo’s vision to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa will only be a mirage.

He also called for support of sanitation management companies as a way of making positive strides in the sanitation sector.

According to him, without such support, waste management companies will be demotivated and may not be able to discharge their duties as expected of them.

[contextly_sidebar id=”k8lQ411IMIVLciNBUkN8M2SeLzc36OD9″]“We believe that enforcement of existing regulations and by laws will go a long way in helping the situation. We have so many numerous policies and regulations which lack enforcement. In Singapore and Rwanda as we refer to that is what they do. If we enforce the laws we will solve the sanitation problem,” he added.

Mr. Siaw made the proposal on Friday when he spoke at a forum organized by the Graphic Communications Group which assembled stakeholders in Accra to discuss solutions to Ghana’s sanitation menace.

It was on the theme: “Managing sanitation: How to lift the nation from filth.”

Various speakers including the Minister of Sanitation, Kofi Adda and others from the Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana Health Service among other agencies all given the chance to share their views on the theme.

The Zoomlion CEO, still speaking on the topic, complained about the delays in paying their debt by government.

He lamented that some of the debts have not been paid for close to three years, a situation he said has affected the quality of service provided by waste management companies.

“Government must support the private sector to achieve policy targets. Delays in payments affect quality of service. Some of our debts are two years and other are three years. A refuse truck is $95,000 and others are 102,000 euros. Now when you bring it in you are paying taxes and the trucks can only carry waste. It is not like a tipper truck that in case I’m not being paid I can go and haulage some sand and stones, apart from refuse it cannot carry anything else. So when you deprive the private sector the needed support, you kill the industry,” he said.

Mr. Siaw also called on government to intensify the distribution of refuse bins to households as well as advocacy programs to trigger attitudinal change of citizens towards sanitation.

“Enforce the use of bins in each household and a call for sustainable crusade against the filth. These are the way forward.”

Sanitation beyond aid

He also called on government to try and take the country off sanitation subventions from donor partners.

Mr. Siaw explained that government does not require aid to make the country clean urging it to put in place adequate measures to make this dream come through.

“More attention paid to sustainable sanitation financing.  We must a sustainable financing beyond aid. We don’t have to wait for donor to give us aid at their own time and pleasure then they give us aid for the sanitation sector. And as we have Ghana beyond aid mantra we should also strive to achieve waste beyond aid. Everything must be beyond aid,” he added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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About 800 workers of Zoomlion took their cleaning equipment to areas such as Obetsebi Lamptey Circle, parts of the Accra-Tema motorway, Nima and Asylum Down to dredge choked drains, cut down overgrown weeds and sweep the streets.

Speaking to journalists during the exercise, the Mayor of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah, hinted that his outfit would this time round enforce sanitation bye-laws with no human face or favouritism.

“We will deal with anyone who just litters anywhere anyhow”, he said.

He noted that a lot of these sanitation challenges are created by human behaviours  hence the firm decision of the AMA to go after sanitation offenders.

Sanitation Minister, Kofi Adda — who was with an entourage of government officials called for an attitudinal change to sanitation. He urged the public to stop putting up illegal structures that worsen the sanitation situation in Accra.

“Those who are in the wrong places – who are there illegally – should move out of those places…you members of the press should do your part in supporting us. You have to come here periodically to and see what is going on.

“If you catch anybody to littering or defecating or urinating openly you have to bring that person to book. Take a picture of them and put in the print media or on TV…then we know who it is” Kofi Adda told the press during the tour.

Kofi Adda said Nana Akufo-Addo’s promise to make the capital city the cleanest in Africa is on course, saying a plan has already been mapped out for implementation.

On his part, Chief Executive Officer of Zoomlion, Dr. Siaw Agyepong, said the most efficient scheme to deal with the cancer of filth and to overcome the chaos that it comes with is to ensure that every house gets a dustbin. He believes that the treatment of waste has a pattern which should not be broken adding that once waste is generated, it must be contained in a liter bin awaiting transportation to the disposal or treatment site. Zoomlion has pledged to support the filth fight with a nationwide distribution of about two million dustbins.

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By: Philip Nii Lartey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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According to him, some of the policies have brilliant solutions to Ghana’s sanitation woes but have not been implemented by successive governments.

Speaking at the launch of a sanitation campaign dubbed Ghana Action Series being spearheaded by social group, One Ghana Movement and Citi FM; Mr. Esseku said the policies if implemented will go a long way in helping the country win the war on filth.

“The team came back and told us that they cannot undertake that task because they need somebody like a professor to do that. In a ten year period they found 109 policies, strategies and guidelines which had been developed for a ten year period – 2002 to 2012. These have been developed for sanitation related issues. If you look at the spatial plan and strategies put in place are excellent, but we are unable to implement it. We go for international conference and tell people what we have done in Ghana and they say wow, but when we have to tell them the level of implementation then we begin to stutter,” he noted.

Gov’t secures $3m for national sanitation master-plan

Mr.Esseku’s remark comes on the back of an announcement by the Minister for Water Resources and Sanitation, Kofi Adda, that government has secured a $3 million facility to together all such documents into one master-plan.

Speaking at a stakeholder sensitization in January 2018, Kofi Adda explained that the master-plan will help provide a clear road-map to address sanitation challenges in Ghana.

“I will say it is critical because in any endeavour, if you do not have a good plan, you may not know where you are heading, you will be lucky to get on the right path. So we need a master plan attached to getting everything that we need to anticipate in trying to develop a very efficient sanitation module” he said.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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This, according to the sector Minister, Kofi Adda, is a big challenge because the issue of inadequate staff is not “good enough” for the huge task on them.

Although a year has passed since the Ministry was created, not much has been done by way of improving sanitation in the country.

“I started the ministry with just about four officers… Now we are up to about eight. That is certainly not enough,” Kofi Adda said on Tuesday.

The Minister made the remark at the launch of the Ghana Action Series, a campaign by a social action group, One Ghana Movement, in partnership with Citi FM, aimed at putting pressure on the powers that be to tackle the insanitary conditions in the country, as well changing negative attitudes of people towards sanitation.

Mr. Adda further called for more capacity building programmes for his staff to enable them adopt modern skills in solving sanitation problems.

“ If you look at the whole value chain of waste and assigning responsibility to these staff members, they cannot run all the things that we want to do so we need to build capacity. Besides, so much is happening by way of technological advancement, they need to be able to step up every now and then to upgrade their knowledge and skills and be able to come back and make sure we do what is expected of us,” the Sanitation Minister added.

According to the President, he created the new ministry to help improve the sanitation in the country, which he said had reached frightening levels, considering the level of filth in gutters and open places in the country.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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The post I have only 8 staff – Sanitation Minister laments  appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

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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