The Paramount Chief of the Tongo Traditional Area, Tongraan Kugbilsong Nanlebetang, has challenged Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to own the environment and guard against it jealously by dealing brutally with sanitation bye law offenders.
He was speaking as Chairman of the Zoomlion and Graphic Communications Group’s Sanitation Awareness Campaign Dialogue forum at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region.
Graphic and Zoomlion Ghana Limited in a partnership is embarking on a nationwide Environmental Sanitation Awareness Creation Campaign dubbed “Make Ghana Clean” to support the president H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to achieve his vision of a clean Ghana in Africa.
The Paramount Chief equally advised political leaders to stay clear off the MMDAs in matters relating to environmental sanitation because waste management and environmental sanitation for that matter have become a national problem that should be given a national attention which indeed the President is busily working on and should be supported by the citizenry.
The Tongraan who doubles as a Member of the Council of State complained about the incidence where the assemblies take custody of stray animals and the politicians turn around to plead for clemency and mercy for them. He asserted that the phenomenon is counterproductive and must end.
The Tongraan raised the issue of the plastic menace in the Upper East Region which is destroying their farms and called for Zoomlion Ghana to consider a mechanism to deal with the menace in the farms to improve yields for the farmers and cautioned residents in the region to stop disposing plastics indiscriminately.
A Senior Communications Specialist of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr. Mohammed Mahama Adams, in a presentation reiterated the waste management and environmental challenges of the country as mainly the lack of law inforcement and the negative attitude of the people.
He added that even though Zoomlion is constructing the IRECOP projects in every region, there is still need for landfills because waste management plants can recycle only 90 percent but the residue of 10 to 5 percent must go to the final disposal sites.
Participants were unanimous that the strict law enforcement by the assemblies through the security agencies and consistent behaviour change community coupled with the deliberate change of attitude by the citizens will end the sanitation canker in Ghana once and for all.
The Ghana National Fire Service, staff of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Graphic Communications Group and the assemblies ended the programme with a massive clean up campaign in the Bolgatanga Municipality.