Treat sanitation as Free SHS and provide funding – Accra mayor to gov’t

The mayor of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah, has thrown a challenge to government to find a sustainable funding mechanism to deal with sanitation matters in Ghana.

According to him, if sanitation is a priority of government, it must be treated just as important as the Free SHS.

The mayor was speaking at the 8th National Development Forum series organized by the National Development Planning Commission.

This year’s forum was on the theme, “Sustainable Management of Ghana’s Sanitation”.

Mr. Adjei Sowah told participants at the forum that sustainable financing of sanitation matters is one of the biggest challenge the country is facing and until a cure is found, stakeholders in the sector will continue to struggle.

“… If we have found money for Free SHS because it’s a priority of government; if sanitation is a priority of government, we should find that sustainable financing mechanism,” the mayor said.

His comments come on the back of doubts from many citizens about President Akufo-Addo’s promise to make the capital the cleanest city in Africa.

Also, the mayor is not enthused about plans to create a sanitation authority to supervise the sector.

For him the authority even though it is important will take a while and comes with a huge cost to set it up in the near future while there are daunting challenges facing the sector currently with the poor handling of landfill site which is posing great health risks.

“… As for the creation of a sanitation agency, I can tell you that – by the time you create it, you must look for office accommodation, vehicle; as these kinds of things that money could have been used for even prepare your landfill site as soon as possible and can deal with the matter. That is also another bureaucracy…” he noted.

Ghana’s major landfill sites in Accra and Kumasi is said to be in a poor state needing critical attention. Cabinet has recently approved for the engineering and construction of modern fit-for-purpose landfill sites in Accra and Kumasi.

Ghana, like most developing countries has a solid waste management problem. It is estimated that 12,710 tonnes of municipal solid waste are generated per day in Ghana, 14% of which is plastic.

By Yaw Dodoo, Daily Mail GH

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