MCE cautions against resistance to development projects
The Municipal Chief Executive of the Ga Central Municipal Assembly (GCMA), Mr Aristo Aryee, has cautioned residents and traditional leaders against their continued resistance to development projects either ongoing ones or those yet to be started by the assembly.
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According to him, such attitude and behaviour by the residents had the tendency to retard the growth and development of the municipality.
He cited some instances where contractors working on various projects had been chased out of site by some aggrieved factions even though the necessary consultations might have been made before the start of such projects.
He, therefore, appealed to the residents to consult the assembly if they felt aggrieved by any ongoing project for their concerns to be addressed.
Mr Aryee was speaking at the launch of the Ghana-Netherlands Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Programme Master Plan in Accra.
“There are lots of roads, markets, clinics and other social amenities that need to be constructed in the assembly. But whenever contractors make attempts to do so, they are chased out of the site,” he said.
WASH Master Plan
The five-year Master Plan is aimed at tackling sanitation in the municipality with the construction of toilet and water facilities, advocating against open defaecation and an intensive education on hand washing among the residents.
The project is also aimed at inculcating in children from the schools in the various communities the need to be hygienic in whatever they do, and to grow up as responsible citizens.
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All stakeholders, including parents, residents, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) ,would be brought on board to help in the education on sanitation in the area.
The assembly would also construct a four-and-a-half-kilometre concrete bridge on the Ole River at Ablekuma to ease the movement of commuters in the area.
Some ongoing WASH projects
Currently, Pro Net, one of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that were brought on board to assist in the implementation of the project, has started constructing an eight-seater water closet (WC) at Anyaa 1&2 Basic School.
It is also constructing a biofil latrine at Chantan Experimental School and rehabilitating an eight-seater WC at Abeka Motorway.
In a power-point presentation, the Municipal Environmental Officer of the GCMA, Mr Bechesani Demuyakor, said the assembly had put medium and long-term plans in place to ensure that the general objectives were realised by 2040.
By 2020, he said, the municipality would have enhanced the collection of liquid waste in households, and added that “the necessary plans have been put in place such that in the long term 20 per cent of liquid waste will be converted into energy and fertiliser.”
Ghana-Netherlands WASH Project
The Ghana-Netherlands WASH Project (GNWP) was introduced to cure the deplorable sanitation and water situation in five metropolitan and municipal assemblies in Ghana.
The €200-million project is funded by the Netherlands government.
The beneficiary assemblies are the Cape Coast Metropolitan Assembly (CCMA), Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipal Assembly, Ga South Municipal Assembly (GSMA), Ga West Municipal Assembly (GWMA), and the Ga Central Municipal Assembly (GCMA).
The WASH programme is built around three main areas —infrastructural development, behavioural change and capacity building.