Playground turned into refuse dump
Some residents of Kanewu, a suburb of Tema West, have turned the only playground in the area into a refuse dump, depriving children of the opportunity to engage in recreational activities.
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The playground was the only place schoolchildren in the neighbourhood converged for physical education (PE) and engage in other games.
When the Junior Graphic visited the neighbourhood, it found out that some residents had defecated on the playground resulting in an overpowering stench in that part of the community.
Some children in the area complained that some residents usually dumped refuse on the playground under the cover of darkness and that had resulted in the heap of rubbish there.
Ebenezer Appiah, a Class Six pupil of the Mawuko International School, said he wished the people who engaged in those acts would be sanctioned since they had made living in the community almost impossible as a result of the bad odour and the difficulty in finding a safe place to play.
Miss Regina Asiedu, a JHS One student of the Yesu Mo International School also said she always had to sneak out of the house when her mother was not around to play there since she and her friends had nowhere to play.
Owusu Perprah, a Class Four pupil of Belle International School, said the situation was worrisome and had resulted in one of his friends relocating from the community after she got infected with cholera after they had gone to the playground to play.
Mrs Mary Mensah, a resident whose house is close to the playground, said most of the children who played there often messed up their hands with the filth on the ground.
She pointed out that that was something children could not do much about since it was part of the activities they engaged in.
She, therefore, called on the Tema Municipal Assembly to take steps to prevent people from turning the playground into a refuse dump.
The Assemblyman of the area, Mr Romeo Akahoho told the Junior Graphic that the community had been facing the challenge for quite some time now.
In order to address the problem, he said, the Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA) had been arresting people who dumped refuse on the playground to serve as a deterrent to others.
