Agona Residents Mad At Zoomlion �Pockets Juicy Contract Money But Refuses To Clear The Refuses

The plight of the people of Agona Nkwanta in the Western Region is moving from bad to worse, following the recalcitrant stance of workers of Zoomlion Ghana Limited to clear mountains of refuse that have piled up in the town, as a result of the non-payment of their salaries. What has even made the situation worrisome is the fact that Zoomlion, which has been given the contract by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to sweep and spray disinfectants in the district, had already been paid the contract sum through the deductions made from the assembly�s share of the Common Fund in Accra. When this reporter visited the town recently, some of the residents expressed shock that both the sector ministry and the distrct assembly have not bothered to bring Zoomlion to book for collecting the money and not executing the contract for which the money was paid. The residents fear that Agona Nkwanta, which is a major market center in the Western Region, could experience cholera outbreak, as is happening in other parts of the country, if nothing was done to force Zoomlion to execute the contract. The angry residents took this reporter to see heaps of refuse in front of the Ahantanman Rural Bank, where the residents queue to board taxis and trotro to the various parts of the country. The stench emanating from the abandoned refuse was enough to scare away any casual visitor to the town. But this was not the only place in the town that the refuse had piled up. There are many of such abandoned refuse dumps in the town. The manager of the only public toilet which serves the residents expressed regret over the continuous piling of the refuse without evacuation. The elder could not tell why for the past five months the refuse dumps had not been cleared and evacuated. It would be recalled that workers of Zoomlion in the District, who are supposed to clear the refuse laid down their tools a couple of months ago over non-payment of their salary. Even through the district assembly had been compelled to cough up GH25,000 from its internally generated fund to clean the district, that has not helped in solving the problem. On the filth in some communities in the District, the Assembly quickly moved to evacuate the Apowa-Ghacem refuse dump, but left others unattended to. The Assembly Member for Apowa electoral area, Hon. Nicholas Nyankom confirmed that the Assembly evacuated the refuses on Tuesday.