Alhaji Collins Dauda, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, has tasked Ghanaians to own the National Sanitation Day (NSD) clean-up exercise introduced by President John Dramani Mahama to help do away with filth.
He said "citizens must therefore assume ownership of this laudable project to make it long lasting, whilst ensuring cleaner communities to prevents unnecessary death created by outbreak of diseases”.
Alhaji Dauda made the remarks after a clean-up exercise at Ejura in the Ejura/Sekyedumase Municipality of the Ashanti Region where he participated in the monthly NSD exercise.
He said the exercise must not be driven by government but must be initiated by the citizenry and this can be done through attitudinal change and commitment.
He said sensitization, commitment, involvement and massive participation of all the citizenry, was imperative to make the exercise succeed.
Alhaji Dauda who is also the Member of Parliament for Asutifi South said the national clean-up exercise was initiated by the President against the backdrop of incessant cholera cases that engulfed the whole country last year.
He said the exercise in Ejura began slowly in the morning but at a point, he was surprised at the numbers trooping in to join and participate including the Council of Churches, chiefs and traditional authorities.
The Minister noted that whiles the exercise was going on, there were other people going on with their business unconcern and that this attitude calls for legislation to deal with such characters.
He said the Ministry was not in a rush to promulgate a law to deal with such characters but will eventually get there. He said when they get there; the law would deal with those who would want to be forced by the law to participate.
Alhaji said the consequence of an outbreak of a disease does not differentiate about who a minister, a doctor, a chief or an ordinary person is and that is why citizens must be in control periodically.
He charged the Municipal Assembly to use their resources to engage the youth of the area periodically to do a weekly or bi-monthly clean-up exercise and thanked the people for participating.
Alhaji Muhammad Bawa Braimah, Municipal Chief Executive of the area entreated residents to take active participation in the clean-up exercise.
He said the town was divided into four zones, namely the hospital, the central town and the central market and central mosque areas and mentioned that members of the National Tailors and Dressmakers Association, the National Service Personnel, Hairdressers Association and the Ejuran Senior High School were deployed to all the four zones.
Alhaji Braimah said the exercise did not meet his expectations fully, adding that the previous exercises had experience more participation than this one.
He said the Municipal Assembly is working out to put in place a law that will punish offenders of the sanitation regulations and that dust bins has been put at strategic points to control the indiscriminate dumping of refuse littering.
Source: GNA
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |