Enough of the talking, time to enforce the sanitation bye-laws — ESPA
The Executive Secretary to the Environmental Services Providers Association (ESPA), Ms Ama Ofori Antwi, has called on metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to haul households to the sanitation courts for not registering with any waste management company, resulting in the absence of litter bins.
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In 2010, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) introduced the Fee and Performance-based contract, and virtually abolished the central container site dumping system.
Under the new policy, all residents are supposed to register with accredited solid waste management companies to have their refuse bins emptied and taken to landfill sites. Residents were also required to pay rates agreed on by the assemblies to the contractors for the sanitation services.
However, Ms Ofori Antwi stated in an interview with the Daily Graphic that “Some residents, particularly in middle and low income areas, have failed to register with the accredited companies and have consequently resorted to indiscriminate dumping of refuse.”
According to her, the assemblies had the responsibility of enforcing their own policies, which compel the households to register and pay approved rates to waste management companies.
ESPA members in a walk and clean-up exercise in Accra
PPP Agreement
“We have a public-private partnership agreement with these assemblies and under that policy, we are responsible for about 70 per cent of the waste collection — registration of households, provision of litter bins, emptying of filled litter bins and haulage of refuse collected from households and other entities to final disposal sites,” she explained.
The assemblies, whose core mandate is to ensure that the cities and towns, remained clean at all times, have about 30 per cent of the responsibility, and that includes the provision of final disposal sites (landfills) and enforcement of the sanitation bye-laws.
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“It appears however, that some of the assemblies have reneged on their responsibility but we, as a private sector, cannot enforce the bye-laws of these assemblies and that it is why we need them to do it on our behalf so we can effectively carry out our duty of keeping clean the areas where we have been mandated to work.
“Our responsibility is to sweep, clear, and desilt the gutters but when it comes to the enforcement we are powerless,” she stated.
Ms Ofori Antwi observed that the flooding situation for some areas could be avoided if the nation paid more attention to the management of solid waste.
“The rains are already here but we all know that some areas will be flooded due to choked drains. We are pleading with the households to pay something small for the collection of their waste,” she said.
Members of the Environmental Services Providers Association (ESPA) assisting in cleaning a place during a National Sanitation Day
Government support
Currently, the ESPA is trying to get the government to shift its focus from the curative (NHIS) to the preventive by supporting waste management companies with the required support, she stated, adding, “That is the only way we can live a truly healthy life.”
Ms Ofori Antwi said currently the government owed landfill operators and we were pleading that the money be released now to relieve ESPA landfill operation members from the dire financial situation some found themselves in.
Citing the situation in Kumasi, she said some of the money had been in arrears for over three years.
“We do not want a situation where our members will shut the landfills because of the indebtedness,” she said.