A few months ago, the ministry of sanitation and water resources was lamenting that what was allocated to it in the national budget was not enough to tackle the sanitation and water challenges confronting the country. And that the state had to do more, if indeed, we wanted to address the huge sanitation problems facing us as a people and a country.
Well, the ministry has something to be excited about. Yesterday, it was announced that the government has released GHC200 million Ghana Cedis to the ministry to help tackle our sanitation issues. The sector minister, Mr Kofi Adda, has disclosed.
According to him, the money will enable his ministry deal with water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) challenges. That is not all, he added that it would also enable his outfit clear illegal dumping sites and procure new waste management trucks for the regional capitals to deal with waste management.
“With this money we are going to tackle the many illegal dump sites where refuse have piled up over the years and also remove the piles of refuse in the market such as Makola, Madina, Kaneshie and the Dome market,” said Mr Adda.
Clearly, the amount released is a huge respite for the sanitation ministry, as we believe the money released to it will go a long way to support its sanitation agenda.
Poor sanitation has been the bane of this country. Our markets, lorry stations and our immediate surroundings are almost on daily basis littered with refuse and loads of garbage. The situation, however, becomes worse particularly in the rainy season where some recalcitrant citizens have made it their penchant to throw their refuse into drains and gutters.
The result of which is the choking of our drains, which leads to outbreak of cholera. Its been said time without number that the practice of good sanitation is a shared responsibility, and we at Today totally agree with that school of thought.
Indeed it’s about time we moved away from the notion that keeping our cities and communities clean is the sole responsibility of the government. That is what has accounted for people littering indiscriminately in public spaces with the knowledge that our city authorities will clean such places.
The fact of the matter is that we all have a role to play in ensuring that our country is clean, bearing in mind that a healthy population brings about an increase in productivity.
And to the Ministry of Sanitation we want to charge them to work with the sense of urgency to ensure that our public spaces are rid of refuse not leaving out our choked gutters and drains.
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