President John Dramani Mahama has announced that the government is considering setting aside one day every month for a nationwide clean-up exercise, saying the current two-day national exercise is not enough to deal with the scale of sanitation challenges across the country.
The President made the remarks at Alajo in Accra after joining senior government officials to take part in and inspect the start of the two-day national clean-up exercise. The exercise forms part of efforts to improve sanitation, clear drains and reduce the risk of flooding in vulnerable communities.
"Two days are not enough to finish this work, but we are going to institute it so that at least one day every month all of us should come out and clean our surroundings," he said.
The President said the proposal was rooted in values that have long been part of Ghanaian society, where communities took responsibility for maintaining clean environments. He suggested that urban life had weakened that sense of communal responsibility.
"That is what our traditional values were about. We are taught to keep a clean environment, but when we all leave our hometowns and come, because of the anonymity of urbanisation, we think that nobody watches us, so we dump those values and we live in filth," he said.
Speaking during the exercise, President Mahama urged Ghanaians to stop using drains as dumping grounds, warning that indiscriminate disposal of waste is worsening flooding risks.
"The drains are not garbage instruments. If you want to dispose of something, you know how to dispose of it," he said.
He urged residents to make use of designated waste disposal facilities, including skip containers placed across the city. "We have skip trucks that leave containers all over the city. Just go and throw your garbage into the skip, and the truck will come and pick it and take it where it has to take it," he said.
The President also indicated that the government was taking further steps to address flooding and drainage problems, especially in parts of Accra where blocked drains and silted streams continue to pose a threat during the rainy season. He said the Minister of Finance had already released GH¢150 million to support flood mitigation efforts, including the dredging of streams and other drainage works.
"I'm also asking the Minister of Finance; he's already released 150 million to help with flood mitigation, that is, the dredging of the streams and all that," the President said.
The President announced that the government will procure additional specialised equipment for the military to improve the clearing of drains. "We also have to get specialised machines like backhoes to take the silt that we have taken out of the drains and put them in a tipper truck to take them away," he said.
President Mahama cautioned that failure to properly remove and dispose of waste collected from drains would render the exercise ineffective. "Otherwise, if we don't do that, what we've done will be in vain because when the rains come, it will just wash all those silts and garbage back into the drain," he said.
The national clean-up exercise forms part of the government's post-flood response to improve sanitation, clear choked drains and reduce the risk of future flooding following the devastating June 29 floods. The Post-Flood Mitigation Committee is coordinating the two-day exercise across seven flood-affected regions.
