Sanitation problem: Is Kumasi showing the way?
Good news for sanitation campaigners, especially those worried about the capital city’s cleanliness. It seems that at long last the Accra Metropolitan Assembly has swung into decisive action!
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A couple of days ago, I went to the Kaneshie Market to find out whether a social media video posting depicting a shocking sanitation situation there was truly a current scene.
Well, the posting didn’t lie.
The bustling taxi rank side opposite the Kaneshie Police Station was indeed hosting a disgraceful refuse mountain which a concerned citizen had captured for social media. What I saw during my visit on Wednesday, August 2, around midday confirmed that it wasn’t a Fake News item.
At that side of the beautifully, freshly painted market was a mammoth heap of garbage. And the stench!
Yet, sitting nearby, with the wall of filth as a backdrop, were market traders with their wares, foodstuffs too; apparently resigned to their fate of having to tolerate the insanitary heap and the awful smell. Market business was going on; with some people around even eating! A Public Health Specialists’ nightmare; and what could be an invitation to an epidemic.
So the market owners, the Accra Markets limited, what have they got to say for themselves?
And what has the AMA, too, got to say about this? What explanation has the Accra Mayor, AMA Chief Executive Officer Nii Adjei Sowah got to offer, especially as the Kaneshie Market is supposed to be a, or rather the, showpiece market in Accra and Ghana?
How was this allowed to happen in the nation’s capital, AGAIN? Definitely that mountain of rubbish didn’t spring up overnight.
No rubbish trucks? Or no money to pay for the evacuation? Or no dump sites?
However, thankfully, when I got there, I saw signs that the refuse was being cleared – probably following the social media alert. The encouraging confirmation was that there was a garbage-lifting machine there, although there was only one man at work then, clearing some of the garbage.
I would have thought that given the size of the heap, there should have been dozens of workers there from morning till night, making sure it would be cleared in the shortest possible time.
But happily, that is not the only indication that something positive is happening on the sanitation front in the capital. The dailies of that same day, August 2, reported that Mr Sowah and a team have started surprise visits to premises in the city to check their sanitation ‘credentials’.
During the visits, citations are awarded for well-kept, clean premises. Notably, and interestingly, former President Jerry Rawlings was commended for the exemplary neatness of his residence. He was also designated a Sanitation Ambassador.
But the state of the Kaneshie Market is not the only sanitation worry in Accra. Everywhere one turns, the gutters are choked with dirt and plastic waste.
And in all this, what about the Sanitation Ministry? Has Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Mr Kofi Adda nothing to tell us?
Thinking about the Kaneshie Market rubbish mountain, I remembered a report on TV 3 last Sunday. It was an intriguing news item from Kumasi, about a pilot project that Kumasi MCE Osei Asibbey Antwi has launched: night time cleaning of Kumasi.
According to the report, the cleaning organised, by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, starts at about 8 p.m. and Kumasi Mayor Mr Antwi himself is involved in the exercise. They work until all the dirt is cleared. Thus, the way I see it, in the morning when the city wakes up, Kumasi starts the work day on a clean footing.
The AMA’s new strategy of surprise visits, obviously part of a sanitation offensive, is good news, but maybe Mr Sowah should also consider other methods too, making it a comprehensive attack on the filth.
Perhaps the Accra Mayor might want to take a cue from Kumasi’s very imaginative initiative and try night cleaning of Accra.