The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has launched the Street Sweepers initiative to address the issue of waste management in the city of Accra.
A collaboration between AMA and BetPawa – a gaming company and headline sponsor of the Ghana Premier League, the initiative will focus on four major ceremonial streets in the capital.
They are the John Evans Atta Mills High Street; Asafoatse Nettey Road; Kinbu Gardens through Octagon to Kinbu Gardens; and Circle to Kaneshie 1st Light.
A total of 200 sweepers will be deployed for the exercise in two working shifts of 12 hours per day, maintaining physical presence at all times from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm each day and with a special allowance package provisioned to motivate the staff; meanwhile, law enforcement will be intensified to deal with the recalcitrant ones who flout the Assembly’s bye-laws.
The street-sweeping team will also be supported by officers of the Public Health Department, who will enforce the bye-laws.
In a keynote address during a short ceremony held at the AMA premises to launch this latest initiative, the Mayor of Accra, Elizabeth Sackey, observed that the Street Sweepers initiative will complement the efforts of ‘Operation Clean Your Frontage’ – which was launched by the Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, in June 2020 to make citizens more responsible for cleaning their premises, especially their frontages.
The City of Accra alone generates waste of over 1,800 tonnes daily, the highest in the country so far; and, unfortunately, most of this waste is not properly disposed of… thereby creating serious health issues for citizens.
Other initiatives
To address this, over 300 sanitary offenders from January to date have been successfully prosecuted, with heavy fines placed on them to serve as a deterrent to others, according to the Mayor.
She continued that plans are also far advanced for the Assembly to have its own sanitary courts for speedily dealing with issues of sanitation and related offences.
“I am also happy to announce that a number of initiatives are also being implemented by the Assembly under my leadership: these include a source Separation and Compost Project to divert 50% of municipal solid waste from the landfill, in line with the Accra Climate Action Plan, Zero Waste Street Project – which is a sister-city cooperation between the City of Accra and Paris to make citizens own their streets and ensure the streets are clean at all times,” she said.
The Assembly will further roll-out special polybags for distribution to street-hawkers and traders to control litter within the central business district (CBD), she said.
On his part, the Director of Waste Management at AMA, Ing. Solomon Noi, described the initiative as critical to efforts by government to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa.
“In line with the president’s vision and Operation Clean your frontage, we are making sure that we deploy a strategy that will not impact negatively on our very informal sector players and at the same time impact negatively on the environment when it comes to aesthetics,” he said.
He thanked the BetPawa team – led by Oluwatosin Ajibade and his partner Daniel Safo – for their assistance and support in the smooth take-off of the special initiative.
Commenting on the partnership on behalf of BetPawa, Daniel Safo urged sister-districts to join hands with AMA and make Accra the cleanest city in Africa as envisioned by government.
