Who Is In Charge Of Accra?

Sanitation situation in Accra, the national capital, has returned to the state it was before the National Sanitation Day exercise was introduced to augment the efforts of the various local assemblies, Today has observed.

Whoever thought that the euphoria which heralded the National Sanitation Day (NSD) exercise introduced somewhere in 2015 to rally community members to clean up the environment would lead to the transformation of Accra (in terms of  ridding it of filth) might have gone wrong.

Not only did that euphoria fizzle out, and fast at that but also has left in its wake a filthier city than before.

Now the question on the lips of most residents of the city is: Who is in charge of cleaning Accra?

A recent tour of parts of the city including the Accra Central Business District, Kwame Nkrumah Circle, Odawna, Kaneshie Market area, Adabraka and along the Ring Road Central revealed choked drains with waste littered about on the shoulders of streets.

Where there have been attempts to clean up the filth, some of the wastes have been left uncollected by those in charge.

One area where this has become the norm was Kaneshie Market where waste bins are not emptied as regularly as expected.

Strong stench greets visitors to the place with the buzzing sound of flies punctuating the air.

A trader who was kind to leave her wares to speak to Today complained about the poor sanitary conditions at the market, especially around the bus terminal.

She sells confectionaries and sachet water only some 50 meters away from a rubbish bin, and despite the filth around her, she was comfortable enough to sell items to customers.

Intermittently she would pause to complain about the failure of the authorities to remove filled up waste bins on time.

Aunty B, as she calls herself, disclosed that at first several rubbish bins were placed at vantage points at the market but some traders dismantled them and took them away.

When questioned whether she felt she also had a responsibility to ensure people did the right thing expected of a good citizen, she answered in the negative but was quick to add that she would obey the law and do what “is right if the authorities also discharged the duties required of them.”

Aunty B explained enforcing the city by-laws as well as collecting filled up bins regularly.

Other traders lashed out at the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Dr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, for the filthy state of the market.

At the Kwame Nkrumah Circle discarded papers and plastic wrappers, sachet water were the dominant wastes seen around.

Transport operators and traders accused the AMA of only showing interest in collecting revenue from them but shirking its responsibility to clean the mess.

A trader at Circle, Madam Christiana, said the city authorities have done nothing to help solve the problem of filth in the area.

She feared another outbreak of cholera could hit the area if authorities did not act with dispatch to rid the place of filth.

According to her, the Kwame Nkrumah Circle area had recorded cases of outbreak of diseases in the past.

“The task force assigned by AMA doesn’t really know their job.  They only fight with traders and take money from us,” she said.

A phone seller, Rashid, who has been in the business for the last 6 years, told this paper that some traders wait till night falls so they dispose waste in open drains and anywhere they find appropriate.

Along the Ring Road Central, some residents expressed surprise at the amount of filth deposited in gutters along the road.

“Mosquitoes are killing us here,” a civil servant, Mr. Archibald Sowah, revealed.

This paper observed that the gutters had become choked with sand, mud and debris.

Source: Today Newspaper