Workers of Zoom Alliance cleaning gutters at Alajo
THE DISTRICT operations supervisor of waste management giant Zoomlion Ghana Limited in charge of the Okaikoi sub-metro, Raphael Lokko has challenged the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to enforce sanitation by-laws by prosecuting people who litter indiscriminately.
Mr. Lokko made the call whilst interacting with journalists after a clean-up exercise in various parts of Accra at the weekend.
The National Sanitation Taskforce and officials of Zoom Alliance, a subsidiary of Zoomlion, cleaned areas such as Maamobi and Nima markets as well as the main street running through Alajo in Accra.
The initiative programme is in tandem with the vision of the National Sanitation Taskforce to promote clean and healthy communities in the country.
It is also to deepen the good sanitation agenda and to ensure a healthy environment in response to a national programme launched by President John Dramani Mahama.
Mr. Lokko noted that the major challenge facing the taskforce was the attitude of Ghanaians coupled with the inability of the MMDA’s to enforce the sanitation by-laws across the country.
This, according to him, had emboldened “the populace to litter the environment with the notion that Zoomlion will clean the streets.”
He called for attitudinal change towards environmental sanitation in order to ensure a clean and healthy environment.
The taskforce, Mr. Lokko explained, would go from door-to-door educating Ghanaians about good environmental and sanitation practices; help in waste collections, desilting of choked gutters and evacuating refuse heaps until the end of December 2012.
He called for the unflinching support and cooperation of all stakeholders in the sanitation industry to ensure the successful implementation of the project, stressing that the taskforce would not be working in isolation.
Mr. Lokko further implored the general public, religious leaders and traditional authorities to actively participate in the exercise to ensure that the nation is kept clean to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.
By Awudu Mahama