Cleanest Region Ranking Campaign needs everyone’s support

Last Tuesday, the Graphic Communications Group Ltd. (GCGL), in partnership with waste management company, Zoomlion Ghana Limited, launched an initiative in Ho in the Volta Region to encourage cleanliness and improve environmental sanitation across the 16 regions of Ghana.

Dubbed the “Cleanest Region Ranking Campaign”, the project, the second phase of the National Sanitation Campaign carried out in 2021, is intended to rank the various regions in terms of how they are managing environmental sanitation, particularly solid and liquid waste.

The contest, with the ultimate aim of inculcating in all Ghanaians the practice of ensuring a clean environment everywhere at all times, also intends to recognise and reward the work of local government institutions and agencies, organisations and communities which maintain environmental hygiene.

Its purpose is also to promote a clean city mindset in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal Six (SDG 6), which addresses access to clean water and sanitation for all.

Poor sanitation practices remain the major cause of ill health and diseases affecting the country, in addition to bad habits of indiscriminate waste disposal and management due to ignorance, indifference or complacency.

According to the 2023 UN Ghana Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Support Programme, “the sanitation situation in Ghana is very poor, with only 25 per cent having access to basic services, about 57 per cent using shared or public facilities and 18 per cent still engaged in open defecation”.

The Cleanest Region Ranking campaign, therefore, aims to inspire collective action towards creating a healthier and more sustainable environment, while fostering competition among regions to achieve higher cleanliness standards.

It courts community participation by encouraging the active involvement of community members, schools, businesses and local organisations in organising clean-up drives, recycling programmes, tree planting initiatives and other cleanliness projects.

The campaign will involve an assessment of various regions based on certain factors such as water purity, waste management practices, green spaces and overall environmental consciousness by an environmental team.

While we congratulate GCGL, Zoomlion and all other partners such as the Ministry of Local Development, Decentralisation and Rural Development, all metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) and the Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA), among others, on their participation in the initiative, we urge the local authorities to also ensure that the bye-laws on sanitation are applied on recalcitrant citizens.

First, we urge that a conscious effort is made to sensitise residents to the bye-laws in all jurisdictions, after which the laws should be applied to the letter, so no one feigns ignorance of them, which in any case will be no excuse.

The local authorities must also in collaboration with waste management companies ensure that receptacles are made available at all public places to collect litter.

They must also make sure that all residencies or human habitations have adequate toilets to prevent open defecation.

Environmental sanitation officers (sanitation police) must be resourced and empowered to make the bye-laws operational in all MMDAs, while the judiciary (the sanitation courts) must effectively partner the MMDAs to prosecute those who fall foul of the law.

The citizenry, including drivers who throw or do not prevent the throwing of litter out of their moving vehicles onto the streets, should also be sanctioned when they litter.

All hands must be on deck if the Cleanest Region Ranking Campaign is to work.

Our homes, manufacturing companies, institutions, organisers of programmes, markets, lorry parks and traders, especially hawkers, must observe proper waste management so that our current sanitation challenges become a thing of the past. 

The GCGL has focused on efforts to encourage the citizenry to adhere to good sanitation practices by initiating this healthy competition among our regions, and we urge all to also play their part in ensuring clean environments.