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Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah has stated categorically that President Akufo-Addo’s promise of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa will be achieved at the end of his two terms in 2024 as he is hopeful of securing another term in the 2020 general elections.

“Yes, Isha Allah, the President will go for two terms and at the end, Accra would have been the cleanest city in Africa and we are on course. God is in control and the battle is still the Lord’s”, she told the media on Tuesday April 23, 2019 at the conference room of the Ministry of Information.

The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources indicated that President Akufo-Addo is serious with this course to making Accra the cleanest city and Ghana a clean at large.

She stressed that President Akufo-Addo has put the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources on top priority list of government to be able to access the entire budget that the Ministry needs for this course.

She however reminded that “our attitude and behaviour are very important contributing factors in ensuring that our cities and major towns are kept clean at all times”.

Talking about the strategies and measures adopted by the Ministry to improve on the sanitation situation to ensure the fulfillment President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s vision of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa, Hon. Cecilia Dapaah says her ministry has collaborated with MMDAs and other stakeholders to address the situation.

“This vision is vigorously and vehemently being pursued by the Ministry in collaboration with the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs), the private service providers and the other stakeholders”, she disclosed.

She said her ministry again has collaborated with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to step up its monitoring efforts to ensure enhanced service delivery by the MMDAs and members of the Environmental Services Providers Association (ESPA) within the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) in particular and across the whole country in general.

“The Ministry is collaborating with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) and the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), to review the Street Sweeping Scheme to ensure enhanced effectiveness and efficiency in the service delivery in a more transparent manner”, she stated.

Consequently, to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa, she said her Ministry has “decided to facilitate the deployment of Sanitation Guards popularly known as Saman-saman by July this year in the MMDAs to strengthen the enforcement of the sanitation bye-laws to maintain cleanliness in our cities and towns”.

“With the changing trends in the management of environmental sanitation services, the Ministry has found it appropriate to review the 2010 Environmental Sanitation Policy, which provides guidance and vision for the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to implement sanitation in a more structured and holistic manner. To this end, the review process has started in earnest to address the numerous challenges when implemented. It is hoped that this new policy will introduce modernization in the environmental sanitation sector”, she indicated.