Attitudinal change needed to manage waste — MCE
The Agona West Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Samuel Oppong, has called for attitudinal change among Ghanaians in the fight against improper disposal of waste in the country.
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According to him, for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to be able to deal with the management of waste in their localities, the general public must change their attitude to help improve sanitation in communities.
He stated that the citizenry must fully support MMDAs to deal with filth by disposing of their refuse at designated areas to eliminate the indiscriminate dumping of refuse.
It was very worrying and unacceptable for people to dispose of refuse anywhere without thinking about the environmental consequences, the MCE said.
Meeting
Addressing a meeting with the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) and the Local Accountability Network (LANET) in Agona West, Mr Oppong indicated that waste management was a shared responsibility between the government, through the MMDAs, and the general public.
The meeting was attended by officials of the Agona West Municipal Assembly (AWMA), non-governmental organisations and the media.
It was to discuss findings of a survey conducted by LANET on the sanitation situation in the Agona Swedru area.
He called on the public to disabuse their minds that the management of waste was the preserve of the government and support it to improve sanitation in order to reduce the spread of sanitation-related diseases.
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He explained that the government instituted the National Sanitation Day purposely to shore up public participation in dealing with filth and, therefore, admonished the public to take part in the sanitation exercise.
Accountability
He stressed that it was essential for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) to ensure that there was accountability on the part of those in authority to enhance good governance.
He commended the GACC for its work in the municipality to promote accountability and called on them to “continue to monitor the use of public funds by office holders to the benefit of the citizenry”.
Communication Officer
The Assistant Communication Officer of the GACC, Mr Abdul Kudus Husein, told the Daily Graphic that the GACC trained LANET, a citizen vigilante group with the objective of ensuring accountability in the district assemblies.
He mentioned that the focus was to engage in research in the local assemblies to identify some challenges in such areas so as to improve service delivery to the people.
He appealed to the public to change their attitude since the assemblies were doing a lot to improve sanitation across the country.
LANET Rep
The General Secretary of LANET, Mr Abubakar Adams Alhassan, in a power point presentation of the report, said his outfit embarked on dealing with sanitation since it was a pressing issue in the area.
He expressed optimism that the findings in the report would be addressed by the municipal assembly to improve the sanitation situation in the municipality.