KMAA TO IMPROVE SANITATION IN KUMASI (PAGE 18)

The environmental department of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, (KMA) has procured a total of 100 litter bins to be placed at vantage points in the Central Business District (CBD) of Adum to enhance effective waste collection and disposal.
The measure, which is meant to reduce littering and disposal of solid and liquid waste at public places, is in line with President John Evans Atta Mills’s vision of promoting environmental cleanliness in urban communities, in order to control the menace of communicable diseases.
It is also meant to create a clean environment in Kumasi throughout the period that Otumfuo Osei Tutu II celebrates his 10th anniversary as the occupant of the Golden Stool.
Already, the department has placed 150 litter bins at the CBD, but indications are that they are not adequate enough to address the sanitation problems that have engulfed the area.
The CBD, which is the hub of commercial activities in the Kumasi metropolis, is noted for the inflow of both human and vehicular traffic, and is therefore easily inundated with solid and liquid waste products.
As part of the measures to create awareness among the business community and their customers on the proper disposal of waste at the CBD and its environs, the environmental department of the KMA is also intensifying its public education on the effect of filth in the environment and how to reduce it.
To this end, officers of the department have initiated a programme under which they board metro mass transit buses and other public transport vehicles to educate commuters on the proper disposal of waste at the CBD and its environs.
This, according to the officers, was to help have a healthy environment in Kumasi, and thereby enhance productivity and revenue generation.
The Head of the department, Mr J.Y. Donkor, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that the department had taken measures to revamp environmental sanitation in the metropolis by ensuring strict compliance with sanitation laws.
He said conscious efforts were being made to create public awareness on the effects of filth generation in the metropolis, stressing that very soon anyone who littered the environment would be arrested and prosecuted.
Mr Donkor said the department had started environmental inspection in the metropolis and would arrest and prosecute residents who consciously dumped solid and liquid waste into public drains and their immediate environs.
“About 30 sanitary inspectors have been deployed to undertake daily inspection of suburbs in the metropolis with the view of ensuring that residents complied with sanitation regulations.
“We have arrested 42 residents, who committed sanitation offences of great magnitude and they are being prosecuted at the Ashanti New Town Court,” he noted.
He said the offences included dumping of solid and liquid waste into drains, backyards and other public places to attract insects that attacked residents and infected them with communicable diseases.
He said those who had connected their septic tanks into public drains were also being arrested, and that such attitudes undermined the promotion of healthy environment.
He expressed concern about landlords in the Kumasi metropolis who had converted places of convenience in their homes into bedrooms, thereby denying tenants access of such facilities.
“All landlords who have converted their toilets into bedrooms have been given two months to reconvert them into toilets to promote a healthy environment in Kumasi” he said, adding that “ those who fail to heed to our directives would be arrested and prosecuted”.