Stakeholders clean Accra-Tema Motorway
As its contribution to efforts to curtail the spread of cholera in the country, the Tema office of Zoomlion Ghana Limited last Saturday undertook a clean-up exercise along the 19-kilometre Accra-Tema Motorway.
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The exercise began at about 7a.m. from the Tema Motorway roundabout through to Lapaz and ended at Mallam Junction in Accra. Sanitation officers from the company weeded and picked litter and also evacuated refuse heaps along the road. They also educated motorists and other road users on ways to keep a clean environment and maintain personal hygiene.
Aside sanitation officers from Zoomlion, there were volunteers from the Tema Metropolitan Assembly, (TMA) and other assemblies along the route of the clean- up, as well as some officers from the Police Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD).
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Greater Accra Regional Manager of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr Gershon Sogbey, said a total of 1,500 people were deployed for the exercise.
He observed that motorists who used the tollbooths on the Accra-Tema Motorway threw toll tickets away indiscriminately along the road. In addition, he said, hawkers who congregated at the tollbooths compounded the sanitation problem as they disposed of the waste they generated anyhow.
“Companies along the motorway also have small heaps of refuse on their compounds which is an indication of their poor waste management practices,” he said.
Mr Sogbey therefore encouraged the general public to change their attitudes towards sanitation. He added, that the company would do its best to keep the country clean.
MCE for Tema
The Ashaiman Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Ibrahim Baidoo, lauded Zoomlion for its commitment to ensuring that the environment was clean.
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He expressed his worry over the generally poor sanitation conditions across the country. “It is time we sat up and faced reality by working to save the environment because gradually the issue of cleanliness is fading off in the society,” he said.
He wondered why even educated people who drove on the roads constantly threw rubbish out of their cars. ‘’This is unpardonable,” he said.
Mr Baidoo said it was time the general public took it as a civic responsibility to clean their environment rather than assume it was the work of sanitation officers.
“Keeping a clean environment should be a collective responsibility. Do not litter for someone to come and clean,” he added.
Under the circumstances, he suggested to heads of educational institutions in the country to bring back ‘inspection days’ in schools to instil in children the habit of cleaning the environment always.