The Shame of Lavender Hill -Accra’s Greatest Shame
Poor sanitation and the inefficient human waste disposal has always been a problem in Accra, Ghana’s largest city.
It is not uncommon to see storm drains gradually transforming into dump sites, 35 gallon trash cans bulging and overflowing with trash and human fecal being disposed into the wetlands and the sea.
I remember when I used to carpool to school with my friends, we would hold our breath and roll up the windows whenever we drove by the Korle Lagoon.
The stench primarily emanated from the numerous tankers hauling human waste and offloading the content into the Korle Lagoon and the sea.
This smell was exacerbated by residents of the towns along the coast who used the beaches as latrines and dump sites for the trash they generated in their homes.
As a child, I hated the prospect of going to the beach. I was mortified by images of the trucks dumping fecal matter into the sea or the prospect of stepping into the fecal matter of someone who was insensitive enough to use the beach as an outhouse.
Some initiatives instituted by Accra’s mayors to tackle this public health problem have worked, but very few have been sustained.
The well-meaning initiatives have fallen into the trap of politicization and Ghana’s proverbial lack of a culture of maintenance
The Accra Metropolitan Authority (AMA) has tried to contain the problem of disposing of Accra’s human waste by engaging the services of private waste management companies like Liberty Waste and Zoomlion.
These private contracted waste management companies are also allowed to sub-contract.
Unfortunately, the AMA has had very limited in managing the colossal waste generated in capital of Ghana.
Channel Two Communications, an avant-garde Ghanaian strategic communications and media company, produced an investigative documentary on Ghana’s inefficient human waste sanitation management.
We will like to share with you this video and we are very interested in your thoughts and opinions after you watch it.
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