Deployment of Sanitation Brigade begins next month

A nationwide deployment of sanitation brigade is to begin in August this year with an initial 1100 of them going to 22 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs).

The Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Mr Joseph Adda, who made this known in Accra, did not mention the beneficiary MMDAs.

Event

This was contained in a speech read on behalf of the minister at a Sanitation Challenge for Ghana (SC4Gh) Learning and Practice Convening (LPC) workshop for 17 participating MMDAs yesterday.

The two-day LPC workshop seeks to stimulate peer learning exchange and co-generate innovations to inform improved practices and speedy implementation of liquid waste management (LWM) value chain results captured in the strategies of the 17 MMDAs. The MMDAs will also go through judging criteria and processes.

It will also facilitate field visits to moderate liquid waste treatment and reuse facilities in Accra and Tema to enable MMDAs to jointly reflect on ways to adapt and enhance partnerships with non-state actors to intensify the implementation of activities.

Concept

The Sanitation Brigade concept is one of the interventions made by the government to improve on the country’s sanitation sector.

Members of the brigade are to ensure adherence to the rules and regulations on sanitation in both state and private properties within the MMDAs.

They will conduct regular visits to all offices to ensure compliance on sanitation issues and where necessary, take legal action against those infringing on the laws.

Each of the 22 MMDAs will have about 50 of the brigade members.

Training of members of the brigade is expected to begin next week prior to their deployment.

Other interventions

Mr Adda said the ministry had also initiated processes to undertake other interventions such as the evacuation of additional dump sites in 22 MMDAs across the country, the procurement of refuse collection trucks and equipment and the rolling out of a street-sweeping scheme to keep ceremonial and major streets in the country clean at all times.

Others are part payment of outstanding waste collection bills, facilitation of processes for the completion of already-started landfill projects within the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) and restructuring of waste management business value chain to ensure innovation and hands-on solutions to Ghana’s sanitation challenges.

Waste collection services will also be streamlined to make them sustainable. Besides, the ministry is also negotiating the acquisition of parcels of land for the construction of integrated treatment facilities countrywide.

Among interventions already made by the government are ensuring a 24-hour operation at the Tema landfill site, while under the GAMA project, over 6,000 household toilets in low-income communities and 260 institutional toilets have been built.

According to Mr Adda, the Central Accra Sewerage System which included a treatment plant and pump stations had also been completed, while the construction of 200,000 toilets as part of a one-household, one-toilet programme had been initiated.