The Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Mr Dan Botwe, (MLGDRD) has tasked Metropolitan and District Assemblies to enact by-laws that are easy to obey by the citizenry.
He noted that though it was appropriate to sanction sanitation offenders, he added that it was also crucial for the bye-laws to be made easier for people to obey.
He said this when he toured both the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP) and the Mudor Faecal Treatment Plant, formerly Lavender Hill, all in the Greater Accra Region.
Mr Botwe was full of praise after a site tour of the two facilities owned by subsidiaries of the Jospong Group of Companies (JGC) last Friday.
The tour followed a similar one he made last week to the Kumasi Compost and Recycling Plant (KCARP) at Adagya in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, also owned by JGC.
The Accra tour afforded the Minister the chance to observe first-hand the operations of the two state-of-the-art waste management plants. It also formed part of the MLGDRD’s monitoring role of ensuring that JGC was keeping to the terms of the management service agreement signed between the government and JGC.
He said since 2012, the government had management service agreements with JGC’s compost and recycling plants in Kumasi and Accra.
“We have seen that they have improved upon what they are doing. We have all seen a new plant installed at ACARP. And the issue is that once they go by the tonnage, what they process and what is in the management service agreement, they review it as and when there is an increase in their capacity,” he explained.
MrBotwe used the opportunity to also call on the assemblies to be effective in the management of waste.
He appealed for more transfer stations, particularly in Accra and explained that such a move would not only cut down the turnaround time for those using tricycles to collect and dump waste, but more importantly deter them from dumping waste along the roadside, especially in the night.
At the Mudor Faecal Treatment Plant, which was his first port of call, the Head of Process Engineering, Sewerage Systems Ghana Limited (SSGL), Ing. Eric AmofaSarkodie, made a passionate appeal to residents in Accra to ensure that their sceptic tanks are free from solid materials.
“At the faecal plant, are operations are on faecal sludge, but most often when the tanks come to dislodge the faecal sludge we find solid materials including pads, woods, old shoes and even aborted babies,” he bemoaned.
This development, he disclosed, was costing his company some GH¢25,0000 to waste management companies to collect these solid materials to the landfill sites, adding that the practice wasnot helping them in anyway.
Mr Sarkodie later conducted the Minister and his team around the faecal treatment plant.
