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The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has expressed its readiness to support government in the spirit of making Accra the cleanest and the most beautiful city in Africa.

According to AMA, the President’s vision would be achieved if stakeholders commit to good sanitation practices concerted leaderships, and unbridled political will.

This was disclosed by the Mayor of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah when he disclosed AMA’s response to the President’s vision.

On April 23, 2017, the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, pledged his commitment to making Accra the cleanest city on the African continent within the next four years.

He said, “the commitment I want to make, and for all of us to make, is that by the end of my term in office, Accra will be the cleanest city on the entire African continent. That is the commitment I am making.”

Soon after the President made his vision known, the Executive Chairman of Zoomlion Limited, Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, commended President for pledging to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa in the next four years, and said the President’s commitment fed into the company’s vision of championing clean, green and healthy communities.

For the Mayor, the President’s vision of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa is by extension, making it even more beautiful that Nairobi, South Africa, Johannesburg, and Port Louis which are considered the cleanest cities in Africa.

According to the Mayor, the Assembly will work with capable private sanitation service providers in order to make the vision a reality.

Notwithstanding the Assembly’s position and determination, the Mayor noted that existing action plans may not be able to attain the vision hence; there is the need for a more realistic action plans, change in policy, city cleaning approaches, enforcement mechanisms, and attitude.

He however assured the president that, the Assembly being the city authority sees his vision as realistic and achievable within the time frame and ready to take on the challenge.

 Mohammed Adjei Sowah also indicated that the president’s vision came on the premise of a 2015 WHO and UN Children Fund report which ranked Ghana the 7th dirtiest country in the world

“It is hard to deny the enormity and urgency of the sanitation challenge of Accra that has been petrifying the Accra city dwellers for decades. Clean means clean.”

“…it means zero tolerance for filth, pollution and unauthorized developments. It also means clean environment, clean water and orderly development,” he said.

The Mayor noted that the efforts to achieve this requires more than slogans, rhetoric, and speeches even though it would help in sensitizing the public but requires concerted action and commitment from all.

He said the Assembly and other law enforcement agencies will work together to go tough on indiscriminate disposals of all kinds of wastes, since they will not renege in taking action against the disposal of untreated biomedical waste and other liquid wastes, solid, chemical wastes into the system.

He also enumerated that they will institute action to cut back on waste generation at source and urged Ghanaian companies to rethink about ways goods are manufactured and packaged.

The Mayor also averred that in order to galvanize waste disposal in the system, “we must condemn littering of the environment and open defecation.”

He said the Korle Lagoon will be transformation and there will be sustained education and sensitization efforts on acceptable cleaning practices.

“Our focus will be on waste management, beautification and law enforcement.”