Works and Housing Minister: Stop dumping solid waste into gutters

The Minister of Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye, has expressed grave worry about peoples’ attitude of dumping household solid waste into open drains, which continues to have adverse effect on government’s efforts at improving communities’ resilience to flooding.

Ensuring the safety of communities, Mr Asenso-Boakye pointed out, is a shared responsibility, hence the need for proper sanitation practice at flood-prone areas by residents.

He warned citizens not to leave the responsibility of keeping the environment tidy to state actors and private sector entities in waste management to carry the burden alone, while they litter communities and the environment with impunity. That, he added, is key in reducing flooding and the incidence of lives being lost unduly.

The Minister made the call yesterday in Accra when he inspected ongoing dredging works at the downstream end of the Odaw Basin, near Korle Lagoon.

He cautioned the residents and traders along the stretch to be responsible in waste disposal and adhere to proper sanitation practice for their safety, as government fine-tunes measures to mitigate the perennial flooding challenges in the cities.

Measures

According to him, government has embarked on several interventions to increase the country’s resilience to flooding, with financial commitment amounting to GHC450 million over the last four years.

The interventions, he disclosed, include the construction, excavation, rechanneling and maintenance of storm drains, saying that had resulted in a reduction of perennial devastating floods across the country in recent years.

Despite the successes chalked in the country’s flood management programme, Asenso-Boakye said the rate at which people continue to dump refuse into the pathways of drainage facilities sets government back in its investments.

“Under no circumstance should anybody dump solid waste into drainage channels because it has a devastating effect on lives and property and on the economy as a whole,” he cautioned.

Ahead of the rainy season, the sector Minister indicated that a private dredging company contracted by the Ministry had been working in the past month on the Odaw Basin.

The Greater Accra Resilience and Integrated Development (GARID) project, Mr Asenso-Boakye assured, would soon commence to complement the existing projects aimed at mitigating problems of flooding, especially in communities along the channel of the Odaw Basin.

“Procurement exercises have already commenced, and very soon the GARID project will come on stream with additional dredging activities and other construction works to complement the gains made to strengthen the country’s resilience to flooding,” he disclosed.