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The Chamber for Local Governance (ChaLoG) has stated that the introduction of a task force to implement the ‘Operation Clean Your Frontage’ is a duplication of the work of the environmental officers at district assemblies.

Mr Romeo Akahoho, Executive Secretary of ChaLoG, who was a former Presiding Member of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA), said the various Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) have an existing task force that could enforce the initiative in their respective jurisdiction.

The Greater Accra Minister announced that to ensure the implementation of the Regional Coordinating Council’s initiative, Operation Clean Your Frontage, some 1,000 people had received intensive training at the Bundase Military Camp to operate as City Response Team for the campaign.

Mr Akahoho stated during an interaction with the media, in Tema, that the introduction of such a task force was not only a parallel role but also an excess usage of state money and a recipe to create chaotic situations in the communities.

Mr Akahoho, therefore, questioned why the RCC was interested in forming security groups when the various MMDAs were already enforcing sanitation laws.

“If you say people should clean their frontage and you want to enforce it, what is the work of the environmental officers, they were once called saman-saman people who go round to enforce sanitation, we still have environmental officers, so what is the job of the environmental officers?

He added that the environmental officers have the responsibility to prosecute anybody who goes against environmental and sanitation by-laws, adding that they also give notices and caution people against creating environmental nuisances.

He said some Assemblies had even gone a step further to run environmental courts to ensure that sanitation offenders were duly prosecuted in court to serve as a deterrent to others.

The ChaLoG Executive Secretary questioned what the Government and the RCC were doing on the monies paid to private institutions that have a franchise to clean streets and other places.

He said instead of creating parallel roles, they must empower the environmental departments to ensure they carry out their responsibilities instead of shifting them to the citizens.