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The Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA) last Saturday organized a clean-up exercise in Accra to clear garbage that had virtually taken over Accra. The exercise, which was spearheaded by the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Julius Debrah, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo and the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive, Dr. Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, was geared towards ridding the city of filth. It was also to ensure a halt in the cholera outbreak, which has become endemic and affected thousands of lives in Accra. On August 5, 2014, the Ghanaian Times reported that the number of cholera cases in the Greater Accra Region increased from 500 to 1,733 in just one week, with 20 deaths. The exercise, carried simultaneously across the various markets and communities in the metropolis, saw the aforementioned personalities join the ESPA to fumigate and de-silt gutters, sweep and collect heaped garbage at Agbogbloshie, Kaneshie, La, Tudu and Tema Station. Commenting on the exercise, Mr. Julius Debrah said his outfit would ensure the sustainability of environmental cleanliness by enforcing the bye-laws of the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs). In effect, he has directed all the Chief Executives of the MMDAs to furnish his office with monthly report over the number of people processed on sanitation offenses. That notwithstanding, he said his outfit would intensify their public awareness campaign and also encourage communal labour to ensure that people�s attitude towards the environment is changed. They would also roll out a program that would see the construction of massive public places of convenience through Public Private Partnership. Dr. Vanderpuije, on his part, said his outfit was confronted with the challenge of a dumping site and had to rely on the engineered site far away from the city, which affected the collection of garbage across the metropolis. �The challenge in ridding the city of filth was lack of dumping site. For over two years now, all the garbage collected had to be sent to Kpone and it was taking our drivers eight hours to and fro. That was a real challenge�, he noted. According to him, now that they�ve been provided with alternative dumping site by Ga West and South District Assemblies, the challenge of heaped garbage across the city would be a thing of the past. He said the AMA would also intensify its public education awareness campaign on sanitation by setting up a Sanitation Standards Implementation Committee to oversee such activities at the grassroots level. Waste collection from house-to-house, he noted, would also be intensified. The President of the Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA), Mr. Joseph Siaw Agyapong, also commenting on the exercise said the association would on monthly basis embark on such cleanup exercises to ensure that the fight against filth was sustained. He urged the public to change their attitude towards the environment and stop littering about. �If we cleanup and they don�t support us, we will still be having same problems or issues at hand. We must all strive to stop littering about�, he noted.