The Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, has warned personnel deployed to ensure a cleaner Accra to execute their duties diligently, saying “if you extort, you’re gone”.
According to him, reports of abuse and extortion during the discharge of their duties will not be taken lightly.
He gave the caution yesterday during a brief ceremony in Accra to deploy some 898 men and women as part of the Operation Clean Your Frontage initiative.
“Anybody who even makes an attempt to collect somebody’s tomatoes, you are gone… If you make an attempt to extort from somebody, even one cedi, you are gone,” he warned.
Highlighting the need for the programme, he further advised the City Response Team against acts that have the propensity to undermine the intent of the task force.
“Discharge your duties professionally as you have been trained by the military. You are not to brutalise the people. You are supposed to engage them,” he stressed.
The team yesterday paraded through major streets in the capital in a procession. The taskforce is expected to clamp down on the indiscriminate disposal of waste across the city.
Traders
The Greater Accra Regional Minister also asked traders in the region who sell at unauthorised places to return to the various markets immediately.
The Operation Clean Your Frontage by-laws make it obligatory for individuals and corporate bodies to be responsible for the cleanliness and greening of their immediate environs.
“Persons and organizations that supervise filthy surroundings could be arrested and prosecuted under the new sanitation by-law,” the Greater Accra Regional Minister noted.
The ‘Operation Clean Your Frontage’ initiative aims to enforce sanitation regulation within the Greater Accra region as part of the ‘Make Greater Accra Work’ programme being championed by the Regional Coordinating Council.