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Apathy and indifference took the better part of some of the people at Pampaso around the Kejetia Bus Terminal and its surroundings in Kumasi during Saturday�s National Sanitation Day to the extent that not even the appearance of President John Mahama to lend a helping hand to clean the garbage would inject some sense of guilt and responsibility in the people to partake in cleaning their own environment. Shop owners, hawkers and shoppers in Kumasi, precisely at Pampaso looked on while military and police officers and men entered silted and malodorous gutters and removed garbage right in front of their shops, stalls and pavements where they exhibit their wares. However, they cheered the President when he got down from his Toyota Land Cruiser V8 in the company of the Ashanti Regional Police Commander, DCOP Nathan Kofi Boakye and the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Chief Executive, Mr Kojo Bonsu to join in the cleaning exercise. Initially some of the security men tried to plead and coerce the people, especially those whose shops were right behind the gutters to join in the exercise but they would not budge, although they were obedient in closing their shops and refrain from selling. In a clear departure, shop owners and taxi drivers around the Dime Light area cleared their environment and choked gutters. In a brief message to the press just after clearing some of the filth that had silted the gutters, President Mahama said the day had been set aside to ensure that filth and dirt in and around homes, work places and the environment were cleaned. According to the President, prevention was better than cure and that was the more reason why Ghanaians should embrace the day, support it to ensure that communicable diseases such as cholera, which had claimed over 100 lives this year would be prevented. He advised that the essence of the day would be lost if people continue to indiscriminately dispose of rubbish. The National Sanitation Day was started on November 2, 2014, in a national effort to fight filth and related diseases, and it has now been named after the late former Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama. - See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/35005-apathy-at-kejetia-as-president-mahama-joins-oseikrom-in-clean-up.html#sthash.KRpNcSEy.dpuf