Stop engaging drug addicts for waste disposal — KoKMA

The Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Korle Klottey Municipal Assembly (KoKMA) in the Greater Accra Region, Mr Nii Ofori Quaye, has asked traders and households within the municipality to stop using the services of drug addicts to dispose of refuse.

He said those drug addicts ended up littering public spaces in the municipality, particularly around the circle interchange and were therefore not fit to undertake those services.

Mr Quaye said many of the addicts were only interested in the monetary benefits but were not in the right frame of mind to properly dispose of the waste they collected.

In an interview with The Mirror after a special exercise in and around the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange by a task force of the KoKMA on Thursday, Mr Quaye said “We have prosecuted a number of the addicts for littering indiscriminately after collecting refuse from traders or households.

“All they do is direct you to the trader or households whose waste they collected with the intent to dispose of at the appropriate disposal site.

As an assembly, we are committed to managing our public space and keeping them well and so we need to stop giving rubbish to such people and utilise the right waste management options to ensure that we keep our environment and where we sell clean,” he said.

He explained that the exercise was part of a periodic sanitation control measure by the assembly to rid the municipality, especially the interchange area of squatters, drug addicts and street beggars to bring some orderliness to such places and also to ensure law-abiding citizens within the area go about their duties freely.

Taskforce

During the exercise, the KoKMA task force, who took the squatters by surprise, were able to gather many makeshift beds made from cloth, cardboard and other materials supported with stones and some of the concrete slabs used to pave the median beneath the interchange.

Some of the items were set ablaze while some were put into a truck.

Though many of the squatters, both adults and children were livid about the exercise, they gathered in groups as they attempted to heckle members of the task force and other officials of the KoKMA.

To them, the Kwame Nkrumah Circle and its environs were not in the jurisdiction of the KoKMA and told the officials that they had no right to prevent them from sleeping around and beneath the interchange.

Some of them shed tears when their mattresses and bags were set on fire.

Mr Quaye, when contacted told The Mirror that the Kwame Nkrumah Circle was managed by three municipalities which are the Okaikwei South, Ayawaso Central and the KoKMA but explained that the KoKMA had oversight over a vast size of the area hence the need to ensure the cleanliness, safety and security of the area.

“We are always in a proactive mood because that is the best way to deal with squatters to make sure that they do not build up to a point where they cannot be controlled.

Ceremonial routes such as circle are the eye of the country, which tourists love to visit so it is not an appropriate place for them to stay,” he added.

On some of the measures taken to halt the disorderliness at the Circle Interchange, the PRO said the KoKMA had two measures, “Which is to engage the embassies to ensure that people coming in from other West African countries do not inundate ceremonial streets begging.”

By doing that, Mr Quaye said, those foreigners did not only beg but also littered a lot which he said, the assembly spent a lot of funds to clean up.

Again, he said, “The KoKMA encourages traders not to hand over rubbish to junkies”.

 
Leader

A squatter, who spoke on behalf of the others and gave his name as Kobby, claimed many of them migrated from the Ashanti, Eastern and Northern regions to Accra in search of greener pastures.

He told The Mirror that when KoKMA wanted to undertake such measures, it should inform their leadership to allow them to organise themselves to find an appropriate place to put their belongings.

He claimed they were “loading boys” who played a key role in the transport business by helping passengers with their goods but found shelter beneath the circle interchange at night.

For a pure water seller, Ama Saah, the circle interchange had been a home for her and her three children.

She complained about her burnt mattress and wondered how she was going to get a new one.

 
Background

About a year ago, The Mirror reported that the Kwame Nkrumah Interchange and its enclave had become a safe haven for persons with mental health challenges, squatters, drug addicts, street beggars and migrants from neighbouring countries with some of the squatters alleged to be engaged in sexual intercourse in the open.

Writer’s email address: lydiaezit@gmail.com