‘We can’t stop people from dumping rubbish into Odaw River’ –AMA

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has said it does not have the capacity to stop people from dumping rubbish into the Odaw River and as such cannot maintain dredging it.

Speaking to Citi News, the Public Relations Officer of the AMA, Numo Blafo said “those who dump refuse into the river do it within certain communities and if nobody in the community talks about it, nobody even alerts authorities about it ,why should the AMA be blamed for the problem?”

The river which flows from the Abokobi and Adjankote hills through Ashongman and other parts of the city is now choked with garbage and other forms of waste - raising fears of a repeat of the 2011 flooding disaster which claimed many lives.

According to him, efforts to dredge the Odaw River are being hampered by the continuous dumping of garbage into the river.

“While we are spending so much to clean the place, people are also doing all that they can to ensure that the place is not clean. We therefore have a problem.”

He however said the AMA was taking reactive steps to address the problem despite the continuous dumping of garbage into the river.

“The AMA is taking steps to clean the place up. At least we are doing something to make sure that the problem is addressed.”

Source: Citifmonline.com