Ministry of Local Govt to allocate budget to sanitation
The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development will, from the beginning of the 2015 fiscal year, allocate part of its budget to sanitation agencies.
Advertisement
The move is to provide support for the various sanitation agencies and encourage private entities to join in the fight against poor sanitation.
The Sector Minister, Mr Julius Debrah, said the budget would also serve as a source of funding for the sanitation agencies and prevent the closure of landfill sites, as experienced with the shutdown of the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant.
Mr Debrah made this known when he paid a visit to the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant yesterday to acquaint himself with the operations of the plant.
The visit was to allay the fears of the public that the compost plant had been shut down.
He also visited the Nsumia waste disposal facility, a new landfill site located in the Nsawam/Adoagyiri municipality, and interacted with the management of the Environmental Services Providers Association (ESPA).
Sanitation policy
Mr Debrah said although there was a polluter-pay policy in place to check environmental pollution, there was the need to do more to boost the policy.
"The policy tends to look more at collecting domestic waste but what we have not looked at is how to provide sponsorship to enable the management of the dumping site to operate effectively," he said.
Other Trending Stories
Subsequently, the ministry took great interest in recycling and as such had initiated efforts to promote the policy of recycling, he added..
Mr Debrah, therefore, lauded the management of the compost plant for their efforts at fighting the sanitation canker and also called on private entities to join in the fight for national development.
Waste water treatment plant
In his address, the Managing Director of the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant, Mr Owura K. Safo, said plans were far advanced to expand the plant by 2015 in order to increase its present capacity for the management of waste.
"Additionally, we expect that within the first quarter of next year, we will bring into stream a waste water treatment plant which is a plant meant to handle faecal waste and waste water," he said.
He said the present system where faecal matter was directly deposited into the sea caused serious marine pollution and was "completely objectionable".
He said the plant, which was about 80 per cent complete, would receive up to 1,000 tonnes of waste water either through cesspit tanks or faecal waste, treat it and produce clean water for composting.
Mr Safo said the company would continue to partner the government to resolve the environmental problems in the country, adding that the plant was now operational and ready to receive waste from waste contractors.
"The shutdown was not meant to cause any problem. It was done because we were facing some financial difficulties and the working capital had run out," he said.