Never again!. Zoomlion boss says on 1st anniversary of June 3 disaster
Zoomlion Ghana Limited, the country’s largest waste management company, has pledged its support to the general public to ensure that the disaster that befell the country on June 3 last year is not repeated.
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Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the Executive Chairman of the Zoomlion Group, Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, asked all Ghanaians to resolve never again to allow such a national catastrophe that claimed 159 lives to recur.
Dr Agyepong, on behalf of the board members, management and staff of Zoomlion, expressed his condolences to the families that lost loved ones and encouraged all public-spirited people to offer hope and opportunities to the victims and their families.
According to him, the pains of the disaster had strengthened the resolve of Zoomlion to persist in ensuring that the drains were desilted regularly to allow for the free flow of water anytime it rained.
Measures to avert floods
Dr Agyepong said it was on the basis of that resolve that the company recently handed over waste management equipment made up of 400 trucks and 4,000 motorised tricycles to the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to support them in arresting logistical constraints.
He indicated plans by the company to put in place other sustainable measures to guarantee the safety and health of the people in the metropolis.
Dr Agyepong pledged that before the end of the year, the company would inaugurate a new recycling and compost plant in Adagya, Kumasi, to enhance the effective collection of waste in the Ashanti Region.
He commended the youth under the sanitation module of the Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) now Youth Employment Agency (YEA) for playing enormous roles to ensure that the city was rid of filth by sweeping the ceremonial streets and desilting drains.
Dr Agyepong stressed that the company had taken measures to avert the unfortunate event that claimed the lives of innocent Ghanaians on June 3, 2015.
“As part of the mechanisms put in place, the company has been supporting the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development every first Saturday of the month with logistics and human resource to undertake the National Sanitation Day to rid all communities of filth,” he said.
Desilting works ongoing
Throwing light on the flood challenges of the Accra Metropolis, he reiterated that Accra was a low-lying area in which case when it rained in other nearby communities of the metropolis, the rainwater was collected in the major drains in the city, which sometimes overflowed, causing havoc.
Dr Agyepong was, therefore, of the view that the ongoing desilting exercise of the Odaw and Korle Lagoon channels from Caprice to Agbogbloshie had helped to reduce the impact of floodwaters in the metropolis even though plastics and other solid waste materials were exposed on the surface of the Korle Lagoon when it rained recently.
“The upper and lower lagoons are all being dredged for easy flow of water,” he said.
He disclosed that Zoomlion had been desilting some major drains in the metropolis to avert the flooding during the rainy season.
Some of the drains desilted so far are the Mampong drain, Sukura drain and the Kaneshie drain. The South Kaneshie drain passes behind the ICGC into the Korle Lagoon.
He said work had also been going on in the Achimota Apenkwa upstream and some desilting works around Sowutuom.
Prosecute sanitation offenders
Dr Agyepong appealed to MMDAs to prosecute offenders when they dumped refuse indiscriminately and cited countries such as Kenya and Rwanda which were doing well in their fight against the degradation of the environment, saying, “We should emulate their example of enforcing bye-laws on sanitation.”
He further added that the flooding situation in the country could only be controlled if residents desisted from throwing waste into open drains.
Dr Agyepong said the company, as part of its public education campaign, would continue to sensitise the public to the need to keep their environment clean and stop the indiscriminate dumping of refuse into open drains.
He again called on all religious bodies such as churches, mosques and traditional leaders to join in the fight against filth in Ghana as the perception that our surroundings were filthy did not befit the status of the country as the gateway to West Africa.
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In another development, the Director of Projects at Dredge Masters Limited, Mr Ahmed Khan, said work was underway to ensure that water would flow freely through the Korle lagoon.
He said four water masters, mobile amphibious multi-purpose dredgers, were being used to clear the drains.