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The Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA) has appealed to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to review the fees approved for them to pay private operators per tonne of refuse sent to the final disposal sites (landfill sites). In their view the AMA must take responsibility for the payment of dumping fees to the private operators at the final refuse disposal sites because the approved fees were too high. Before the revision of the fees, service providers were paying GH�1.20p. This has been reviewed upwards to GH�12.00 per tonne and GH�67.20 per trip of container weighing 5.60 tonnes of garbage. It has also called for an extension of the time given them to relocate their equipment at their old service areas and ensure effective implementation of the new arrangements with effect from February 1, 2010. According the association, the Administration Department of the AMA in a letter addressed to all solid waste collection service providers and dated January 20, 2010 said GH� 12.00 per tonne of refuse had been approved for them to pay to private operators at the final disposal sites. The department further requested the service providers to relocate their equipment which were at their old service areas and to ensure effective implementation of the new programme with effect from 1st February, 2010. J. Stanley Owusu Company is now to operate at the Ablekuma; Meskworld, Anyaa and Zoom lion, the Sabah landfill sites. The association feels that the time for the programme to take effect is too short and that massive public education was needed to get members of the public sufficiently informed on the new arrangements. Secondly, the ESPA said, the AMA had to' commend the private solid waste service providers for providing their own landfill sites and taking the responsibility of maintenance off the assembly. The ESPA noted that the private operators had also saved the AMA from land-owners' requests for development before agreeing to give out land for disposal of garbage. The ESPA said the new arrangement placed responsibility on the service provider who was expected to pay GH�67.20 per container trip weighing 5.60 tonnes of garbage sent to the landfill site to the private operator at the site. It noted that if that assumption was correct it meant that the rate given members of the ESPA to pay was expensive as it did not take� into consideration their operating expenses such as fuel, lubricants, repairs and maintenance costs as well as the administrative expenses (salaries, wages and statutory expenses) that the service providers had to meet in their handling of the waste. The ESPA noted that if the service providers were to pass the expenses on to the public, which was certainly the option available to them in order to remain in business, it would make the cost of dumping refuse unacceptably high for the individual. This, the ESPA said, would result in members of the public avoiding payment of the fees and beginning to dump at irregular places which would eventually contribute to flooding during rains and make the city filthy. The ESPA said when that happened the purpose that the new system was expected to achieve would have consequently been defeated. It expressed regret that the onus of ensuring a clean city had to be left entirely in the hands of the service provider who was being burdened with the payment of excessive fees while the assembly had less to do with the management of waste except to receive dumping fees from the service providers.