Cleanest Region campaign: Local Govt Ministry pledges support

The Minister of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Martin Adjei-Mensah Korsah, has pledged the support of his ministry to the Graphic-Zoomlion Cleanest Region Ranking campaign. 

The initiative, a partnership with Zoomlion Ghana Limited, is to promote high standards of hygiene in communities across the country in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal Six (SDG 6), which addresses access to clean water and sanitation.

Mr Korsah made the pledge when the Director, Marketing, of Graphic Communications Group Ltd. (GCGL), Franklin Sowa, led some management staff of the company to pay a courtesy call on him at the Ministry in Accra.

The visit was to seek collaboration with the ministry for the sanitation campaign. The visit followed a similar one to the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources to get the buy-in of key stakeholders to ensure the success of the campaign.

Responding to the call for collaboration, Mr Korsah said the campaign was in line with the government's effort to ensure a clean environment. He pledged the full support and commitment of the ministry to the campaign, saying the issue of sanitation had been a concern for all.

Mr Korsah reiterated his call for inter-agency and inter-sectorial collaboration to ensure that the country achieved its objective of keeping the environment clean. He said waste management in the country had been a concern for all, and, therefore urged the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) under the ministry to enforce their sanitation bye-laws to prevent the indiscriminate disposal of waste in communities, towns and cities.

He called for attitudinal change among the citizenry to help keep the country clean. Mr Korsah also called for sustained public education in both the print and electronic media on sanitation to help change the attitude of the citizenry to ensure a clean environment.

The Chief Director of the Ministry, Amin Abdul-Rahman, commended GCGL for the initiative, saying the fight against indiscriminate disposal of waste could be fought through effective collaboration between the public and private sector institutions with a focus on changing the attitude of the populace to keep a clean environment.

Initiative

Mr Sowa, providing a brief background of the initiative, said the Cleanest Region Ranking was the second phase of the National Sanitation Awareness campaign undertaken two years ago.

He said the first phase of the campaign involved organising clean-up exercises, and stakeholders’ dialogues with traditional authorities, religious groups and other recognised associations to ensure that every one played their role in a clean environment.

“Two years down the line, you go back and the situation has not improved. So we introduced a phase two of this campaign, which is a Cleanest Region Ranking campaign," he said.

Mr Sowa added that the initiative was to rank all 16 regions on how environmentally clean they were. He said the assessment as to which region was the cleanest would be done by technical experts and the people.

“It will be based on the various parameters that we have discussed with experts and all that, and then we also get members of the general public to vote in their view which region they believe is the cleanest.

"The thinking is that, if members of the public are involved, then they will be interested in ensuring that their part of the bargain is fulfilled by being sensitive to the environment, and will not litter by being mindful in the handling of both solid and liquid waste," Mr Sowa said.