PRESS RELEASE Drafted Aug. 25, 2014 Accra, Ghana Accra Deserves Better and Yes! We Told You So Clean Ghana Now (CGN) welcomes, with cautious optimism, media reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has won a court order requiring the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to refrain from dumping raw/untreated liquid sewage at the Korle Gonno Beach, known to many as Lavender Hill. The Accra High Court has further asked that the AMA comply with an existing enforcement notice to build digesters to treat the waste and make a decommissioning plan available to the EPA, within 14 days. The fact that the EPA had to proceed to court after many years of quiet negotiation, apparently, to seek an order to restrain the AMA, another tax payer funded body, from continuing to illegally pollute public spaces is both an indictment and a caution. We are informed that further to the night time inspection by the Vice President Amissah-Arthur of sites in Accra and his direction for the AMA to deliver on its waste management duties, 15 identified dumpsites have finally been cleared. To what sustainable end? Trailing behind the Vice President of Ghana merely provides photo opportunities and does not even begin to address the fundamental issues effectively. Individuals and communities should be encouraged to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – street by street, district by district - with immediate effect. Landfills are certainly part of the solution but are also recognized not to be a best practice solution to sanitation challenges. Our attention has now been drawn to a report in which the AMA purports to increase waste tariffs in what it has determined as ‘3 residential class areas’ by between 60 to 80 percent due to the recent increases in fuel prices and high vehicle maintenance costs[citifmonline/2014/08/22/accra-residents-to-pay-ghc1oo-for-refuse-oko-vanderpuije-2/].There has been no discussion on what the current tariffs have been used for nor what any tariff increase will deliver in either the quality or quantity of service. This position of AMA reflects a narrow monetarist response to a problem that is far more complicated and requires a multi-pronged, comprehensive, technologically driven and strategic response anchored on the input of key stake holders. Subsequently the Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. Linda Van-Otoo, has announced that since June 2014 the cholera pandemic in Greater Accra Region alone has recorded 6,179 cases with 51 confirmed deaths. The media has published reports of cholera across the country including Ketu South and Nkwanta South in the Volta Region, and Agona West, Gomoa East and Awutu Senya in the Central Region. CGN emerged as a collection of residents living in and around Accra deeply concerned about Accra’s shameful and insalubrious conditions and wanting to get involved and do something about it. The trigger was the confounding piling up of garbage for weeks back in April/May 2014 in several neighborhoods across the capital, with all the attendant health risks as well as aesthetic offensiveness. We recall that at the height of this refuse collection stoppage; the city authorities and government were stone silent; proffering no explanation or succor to its hardworking, law abiding, taxpaying, long suffering and patiently disregarded residents. To express our frustrations as engaged, active citizens in a democratic polity we marched along a principal street in Accra, picking up and sorting out refuse along the way and presented a considered petition (copied to Office of the President; Parliament of the Republic of Ghana and the Ministry of Local Government) to the Accra Mayor, Dr. Oko Vanderpuije. Subsequently we have backed this up with ongoing media engagements on Accra’s sanitation quandaries and valiant attempts to devise, with a collection of partners, long term institutionalized responses at the local and community levels. It will be useful to recall some of the key action points of our petition from June, 2014: • We want a city that will rival and eclipse the order, cleanliness, beauty and livability of some of the noted cities of the world. In Africa an emergent Kigali is exemplar. To this end we demand then and still insist on a meeting with the Mayor and his full administrative staff including collections, procurement and monitoring units, all current contractors and service providers in waste and sanitation, DCEs for Accra, MPs for all constituencies in Accra, Assembly men and women and concerned citizens. The objective of this forum is to enable the mayor and the AMA to share- beyond press releases/conferences and radio sound bites- the real challenges and opportunities related to Keeping Our City Clean and enable architects, planners, environmentalists, artists, community groups, corporate Ghana, civil society and citizens to share their grievances as well as align on viable solutions going forward. As a requirement for and evidence of his commitment to delivering on a fundamental requirement of his task we the undersigned are prepared to work with the AMA to facilitate this forum to Keep Accra Clean by January 2015 as promised by the Mayor in his last press conference held on the 21st of May, 2014. We envisage the holding of the forum in question in September, 2014. • We want Government to ensure that the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACRP) and Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA) are paid all debts owed them to safeguard prompt, reliable and unencumbered waste collection and dumping across our capital. • That the issue of dumpsites, which lie at the nexus of waste management in Accra, be given a thorough, comprehensive and fundamental review to anticipate future challenges and respond to them. In particular we urge that this review takes into account waste management at a more local level using more advanced technology and in a creative manner. • The question of plastics needs to be addressed and immediately. Our beachfronts especially show the overwhelming deleterious impact of plastics on Accra and Ghana’s environment. We think that a ban should be placed, especially on the universal use of plastics / rubber for shopping for starters. This has been done in Kigali. Accra can learn from this example. • The AMA should begin to enforce its own byelaws on sanitation and related matters and be seen to be doing so. Public pronouncements and intents grandiosely proclaimed ad nauseam should give way to measurable, concrete, verifiable action. We must place it firmly on historical record that the AMA did not deign to even acknowledge our petition nor deigned to respond in any manner beyond halfhearted, eye pleasing conduct to these crucial points. In any event, the imminent health catastrophe that we clearly predicted, on account of the poorly managed sanitation regimen, has sadly come to pass. Neither the Mayor nor his assembly have taken public responsibility, shown any remorse or apologized for this tragic development. Nor has the Presidency or the Ministry of Local Government (who themselves also stand unambiguously accused) taken on the AMA for causing needless deaths due to the dereliction (neglect) of their mandated duty from a disease that is both preventable and curable. No public official has been sacked or resigned over this shameful matter! On the contrary AMA staff assembled in August 2014 and gave a ringing endorsement to the Mayor of Accra indirectly mocking the innocent dead and inexplicably lauding the pathetic record of his mayoral tenure thus far. It is our well considered view that the Commander-in-Chief of our Republic, President John Dramani Mahama, should take ultimate responsibility for dealing with this sanitation scourge upon us and direct the Accra Mayor and related statutory bodies to work. As concerned citizens of Ghana, and responsible residents of Accra, we have provided our insights on the way forward (clearly stated in our petition and reiterated here). We also have indicated that we are ready to support any initiative in this regard with the organizational, intellectual and other resources at our disposal. CGN is a non-partisan group that stands for clear objectives, we are watching very closely and fully intend to engage. 1. Engagement and alignment with local authorities, traditional seats, the corporate world, communities and individuals. Let us utilize best practice to Clean Ghana Now. 2. Local plans for sanitation widely and clearly communicated, plans, budgets, timelines. Community by community. Across Ghana. We are all responsible, with local authorities acting within the law and reason, to DELIVER. 3. Find the courage to truly decentralize. Deliver an A to Z integrated approach to sanitation, demonstration projects in specific areas that support other community based organizations to own and deliver Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. 4. Reclaim Green Spaces all across our country and make these more community friendly. 5. Provide a Monitoring and Evaluation platform utilizing best global practice and working with the local authorities who are paid to deliver services they cannot or will not to break through their self-imposed barriers political and profit making barriers to deliver. Clean Ghana Now, we deserve better …
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 08:15:02 +0000
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