Accra Sewerage Improvement Project gets office building
The office building of the Accra Sewerage Improvement Project (ASIP), was inaugurated at a ceremony in Accra last Thursday.
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The project is to improve and extend sewerage and sanitation system for the disposition of waste water from the city in an environmentally and socially acceptable manner.
It is also to strengthen the sewerage staff of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to enable them to operate and maintain the system on a sustainable basis.
Funding
The project, being funded by the African Development Bank (AFDB) with a loan of $69 million, would cover the University of Ghana, Legon, University of Professional Studies (UPSA), Presbyterian Secondary School, Legon and the Achimota School and its environs.
Already, five pumping machines have been installed to lift sewage to the Legon Sewage Treatment Plant at a cost of $15 million; about 50 kilometres of old sewers and 3,000 manholes of the systems have been rehabilitated in those areas.
Rehabilitation and extension of existing sewerage networks is ongoing in other areas of Accra, including Dansoman Estate, Accra Central, Jamestown, Korle Dudor, Tudu, the Ministries and parts of Ridge.
Inauguration
In an address read on his behalf to inaugurate the facility, the Minister of Local Government, Alhaji Collins Dauda, said the project was to improve the off-site and on-site sanitation facilities in the city of Accra.
He said the construction of the Legon sewage Treatment Plant and pumping station had been completed and the sewer maintenance equipment had been procured.
The Project Manager of ASIP, Mr Stephen E.D. Ackon, said about 15 per cent of Accra Central area was served by a piped waterborne sewerage network,while the remaining areas were served by on-site sanitation facilities in the form of septic tanks with soakaways, pit latrines and KVIPs.
The sewerage network, he said, had seen very little extension since its construction in the early 1970s.
"With the limited number of treatment sites, seepage from the on-site facilities is either disposed of in receiving water bodies or in nearby drains and open spaces, particularly in flood-prone low-lying areas,” he added.
He said the effects of neglect and poor maintenance of sanitation and sewerage systems in Accra had led to an increasing use of individual on-site sanitation facilities, resulting in an increase in pollution of surface water bodies in the city and a major contributing cause of waterborne and water-related diseases.