It seems President Akufo-Addo’s vision of making Accra the cleanest city in West Africa has fallen on rocks because the former President, John Dramani Mahama sees otherwise.<\/p>\n
According to the former President, although a Sanitation Ministry has been established, Accra increasingly becoming the dirtiest city in the subregion.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccra has become the dirtiest city I think in the whole of West Africa,\u201d he said in a live video encounter with Ghanaians on Monday, stressing that having travelled to Abidjan in Ivory Coast and Abuja in Nigeria, these places \u201clook cleaner than Accra\u201d.<\/p>\n
He has since downplayed the relevance of the Sanitation Ministry created by the Akufo-Addo-led government, insisting he will scrap that ministry in the next NDC administration because it is \u201cuseless\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Sanitation and Water Resources Ministry was created in January 2017 to provide the needed support to the sanitation and water sectors across the country.<\/p>\n
President Akufo-Addo who established the ministry was hopeful Accra would become the cleanest city in West Africa by the end of 2020.<\/p>\n
But the former president assessed, \u201cIf the president had taken it as one of his promises then he has failed very badly.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially for the fact that you have a sanitation minister, you cannot understand what the sanitation minister is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ministry has since 2017 been managed by two sector ministers \u2013 Joseph Kofi Adda and Cecilia Abena Dapaah.<\/p>\n
But John Mahama said he will realign the ministry if he forms the next government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will move Sanitation ministry back to Local Government, I think it is one of the most useless ministries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t proven itself, it has not achieved anything in the last three years so we will move it back to the Local Government Ministry. We will put a deputy minister there who we will empower to make sure that the district assemblies are doing the right thing, and that they are surcharging people who keep their compound dirty or who do not keep their surroundings clean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Mahama recalled introducing a National Sanitation Day campaign during his first term in office, but said the exercise was sabotaged by \u201cunbridled opposition\u201d by his political opponent.<\/p>\n
He, however, urged Ghanaians who have the mindset that once they pay tax, it was another person\u2019s responsibility to clean the dirt the create to change.<\/p>\n
He promised the day the Akufo-Addo government will reintroduce the cleanup exercise \u201cI will come out and join and clean\u201d, but was quick to add that people do need to wait to be told to clean their environment before they do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems President Akufo-Addo’s vision of making Accra the cleanest city in West Africa has fallen on rocks because the former President, John Dramani Mahama sees otherwise. According to the former President, although a Sanitation Ministry has been established, Accra increasingly becoming the dirtiest city in the subregion. \u201cAccra has become the dirtiest city I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":7657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,8,12],"tags":[49,4908],"class_list":["post-7656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-john-dramani-mahama","tag-president-akufo-addos-vision-of-making-accra"],"yoast_head":"\n