Project ‘Make Accra work’: open letter to Greater Accra Regional Minister
Dear Mr. Henry Quartey, Congratulations on your appointment as the Greater Accra Regional Minister.
This open letter has been inspired by your ‘Make Accra Work’ project and the ‘Operation Clean Your Frontage’, component you were scheduled to have launched yesterday, April 9.
Undoubtedly, you have plans for attaining your objectives but I believe that, for example, some of the comments and suggestions made over the years in relation to the capital city’s environment might be of interest to you.
Thus the following are excerpts from a few of such observations, published in this column, for your attention; and also to refresh the mind of readers.
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THE EXCERPTS:
Beyond the euphoria of the new era
Published on January 6, 2017
It’s now a cliché to say that Accra is wallowing in filth, a situation that surely will not be solved with the once a month ‘Sanitation Day’ alone.
It was the New Patriotic Party administration under President John Kufuor that not only saw the need to beautify Accra, but actually named a ‘Ministry of Tourism and Modernization of the Capital City’.
Certainly that project needs to be implemented.
One suggestion is that the now dead or dying Department of Parks and Gardens should be urgently revived and funded to do its work.
Accra needs to look like the capital city of a country whose well-travelled leaders have seen how others with much less natural endowment have been able to beautify their capitals and even towns and villages.
There is urgent need for new thinking, more pragmatic strategies.
Accra must sparkle and bloom!
May 12, 2017
Why do so many places in Accra look like they are part of an official project to grow and export weeds?
Last month when President Nana Akufo-Addo said that his aim is to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa, some people reportedly said he was being too optimistic.
Accra could become not only the cleanest, but it also has the potential to be the most scenic city on the continent.
The Accra skyline is changing dramatically, very pleasantly, even wondrously so in places.
So what is left is the relatively ‘small’ matter of complementary horticulture, tidy greenery and flowers to complete the picture.
The fact that almost all the central reservations or traffic islands are complete eyesores prompts me to ask once more: why do our road authorities copy admirable central reservations from elsewhere if they have no intention of maintaining ours in a similar manner?
In summary, this country needs the Department of Parks and Gardens fully working!
Accra must not only sparkle with cleanliness, Accra must also bloom!
It’s the Sanitation Minister who has got it wrong!
February 23, 2018
There still remains another major, critical issue to be addressed: availability of toilets in shops and other commercial ventures.
Who is seeing to it that they, too, get their act together?
Whose duty is it to make sure that fuel stations offer toilets, decent ones, to their patrons? If we have officials paid to carry out that assignment, what do they do to earn their salaries?
Sanitation Minister Kofi Adda recently said that people should not expect that Ghana’s monumental sanitation problems will be solved immediately: “You want the Minister to go out there with a broom and wheelbarrow and collect the waste; that’s not the Minister’s job,” he said.
I think it’s the Minister who has got it wrong.
Of course Ghanaians know that it’s not Mr. Adda’s work to go out with a wheelbarrow and collect the rubbish.
People just want to see MORE PRACTICAL ACTION NOW, an indication that the person in charge is getting things done.
That’s all!
SOS Mr. Adda: a creative approach to sanitation needed!
July 20, 2018
It is said that ‘desperate times call for desperate measures’.
The squalor in Accra is a desperate situation and, therefore, it requires an extraordinary measure to solve it.
My suggestion is: why can’t we have free collection and disposal of rubbish?
There should be a creative approach to funding sanitation costs.
Instead of people having to pay directly for garbage collection, a modest charge should be added to other services that people pay for, in order to raise money for rubbish disposal.
For example, Ghana Water Company customers pay an extra one per cent for “firefighting” and another two per cent for “rural water”.
Similarly, why can’t we be asked to pay another one per cent per household for rubbish collection?
Lack of toilets, choked gutters: less talk, more action NOW!
November 23, 2018
Are all the stakeholders supportive of the household toilets crusade?
How much importance do local government officials themselves attach to ensuring that there is at least one toilet in every home? And do they check to see if schools have toilets?
It is unthinkable that buildings are still being constructed without toilets.
If there are rules and regulations, by-laws, as there must be, why are they not being enforced?
If the regulations are outmoded, why can’t they be revised to serve present purposes?
What can be more short-sighted and negligent than a school built without toilets?
Among other things, children need to be taught basic toilet-use etiquette in school, alongside what they learn at home.
Where else do we expect them to learn that if their school has no toilet?
Why wouldn’t such children grow up believing that open defecation is acceptable?
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So, Mr. Quartey, I hope you will find some of the above useful.
I pray that the launch of the 'Clean Your Frontage'’, will be followed by an offensive to ensure that every house has a toilet; that schools, markets, shops, transport terminals, etc. all have toilets.
I believe that the rest of the country will take a cue from Accra’s lead, so all of us need to assist you to succeed.
Best wishes!