Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah
Host of Tonton Sansan on TV XYZ, Prince Kwame Minkah, has hit hard at Minister for Sanitation, Cecilia Dapaah over the filth taking over the streets of Accra amid huge budgetary allocation for the sanitation sector.
Despite spending so much to tackle filth across the country with a priority on making Accra the cleanest city in Africa as pledged by President Nana Akufo-Addo in 2017, filth has piled up at popular places such as lorry parks and markets as well as streets in the national capital.
Experts have blamed the situation on the lack of political will to crack the whip on bad human practices, resulting in perennial floods and the outbreak of diseases.
Calling out on the government, Minkah, who mostly digs up unfulfilled promises of the government on his programme criticised Madam Dapaah for “sleeping on her job.”
He said despite the mandate of the Ministry for Sanitation and Water Resources spelled out clearly, the Sector Minister, Cecilia Dapaah has failed to show leadership in tackling the indiscriminate disposal of waste in the national capital.
He attributed the perennial floods in Accra to the non-innovative ways of enforcing sanitation laws, stating the ministry has failed to partner with the National Development Planning Commission to plan the city well.
“Accra is like Berlin, Adisababa but why do we have filthy streets?” he quizzed.
You said Accra would be the cleanest city in Africa by the end of President Akufo-Addo’s first term but today we keep shifting the time lines…The streets are dirty all over and nobody cares,” he bemoaned.
Touching on the government’s failure to provide potable water to the people in Accra, he said areas like Teshie, Spintex, Madina, and most areas are grappling with water shortages in the national capital while the minister pretends not to have seen the daily challenges of the people.
Most residents, he observed are being billed by the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) monthly but hardly get water for domestic chores, thereby forcing them to fall on the services of tanker service providers.
He said when people do not have access to potable water, they are forced to fall on unsafe sources of water which breeds diseases.
Sanitation Ministry on Course
Meanwhile, despite missing out on the initial target of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa within four years, sector minister Cecilia Dapaah, says the Akufo-Addo administration is still on course to fulfilling this promise.
During her vetting in February this year, Dapaah said, “Accra is on course to become the cleanest city that the President said in absolute terms. I think we are on course looking at what we started doing and what I continued from my colleague.”
Mrs. Dapaah believes “when you start a process, it takes time to yield results.”
She cited some government programmes like the provision of dust bins on streets to prevent littering as being key to this target.
“Most important of all we have also through the GAMA [Greater Accra Metropolitan Area] project provided 33,00 household toilets. That is also part of the cleanliness projects we have undertaken,” Mrs. Dapaah added.