The Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources has hinted of plans to set up a National Sanitation Authority to manage issues of sanitation in the country.
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.
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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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
