AS part of the measures to create a healthy environment in the Kumasi metropolis and its environs, the Ashanti Regional Co-ordinating Council (ARCC) in collaboration with the Presidential Task Force on Waste Management and Sanitation, and the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) launched “a City-wide clean-up exercise” about a week ago.
An article on the clean-up exercise, which appeared on page 29 of the Daily Graphic on March 30, 2009, quoted the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Kofi Opoku Manu, who launched the exercise as saying that the “main objectives of the keep the city clean campaign, would be how to stop littering and the indiscriminate dumping of refuse into drains and open spaces to ensure compliance with the KMA by-laws on environmental sanitation”.
Some of the activities lined up to achieve the objectives of the exercise include the placing of 100 public litter bins in the Central Business District in Kumasi and many others in public second cycle institutions in the metropolis.
As indicated in an article published in the Daily Graphic of March 30, 2009, and headlined -Non-enforcement of bylaws, cause of lawlessness- “ the filth that had engulfed the Kumasi Metropolis, creating a state of unhygienic atmosphere and threatening the lives of residents could be attributed to the failure of the KMA to enforce its own bylaws, especially those that borders on sanitation”.
To quote an extract from the article published on page 28 of the Daily Graphic “ on paper, the KMA’s bylaws are among the finest documents ever produced which would have made Kumasi a haven of peace and serenity, but years of failure to enforce the bylaws seems to have resulted in a state of lawlessness in certain parts o the metropolis”.
Section 79 of the Local Government Act. 1993 (Act 462) of the KMA bylaws on sanitation states “ no person shall place, cause or permit to be placed any filth, refuse or rubbish or any offensive or unwholesome matter on any street, yard, premise, enclosure or open space within the metropolis”.
Continuing, the bylaws on sanitation in Kumasi noted “ the occupier of any premises shall clear and keep free from all dirt, under-bush, under-wood, weeds, high grass, rubbish, rags, broken bottles and all offensive matter (filling up holes with stones, gravel, or otherwise materials) the streets or roads at the front, back side, thereof with the drains, gutters and channels thereon”.
It also pointed out that “ where two or more buildings abound on the streets or roads, the occupier or each shall be responsible for keeping clean only that half of the street or road nearest to his premises”.
Stressing, it said “ no person shall cause a nuisance in any public or open space, no occupier of any premise shall by any act, allow the existence of a nuisance in his premises, no person shall deposit , litter refuse or other matter which may cause nuisance or block the passage provided for a gutter or drains”.
It refered to nuisance as “ any pool, ditch, caves-gutter, water course, well, hole, pond, tank-privy, urinal, cesspool, drains, KVIP which is in such a bad state to constitute a health hazard”
It also referred to nuisance as “ any animal so kept as to be injurious to health, any accumulation or deposit of excreta or urine or things which are or are likely to be injurious to health; any premises in such a state of disrepair as to be dangerous to the health of man or livestock, as well as any growth of weeds, pricky pear, long grass or wild bush of any sort or any work, manufacturing, trade or business that is, or likely to be injurious to health of neighbours and any well, pond or tank, the water of which is tainted with impurities as to be injurious to the health of man or livestock”.
On the consequences of those who flout the bylaws, it said “ any person who contravenes any of these bylaws commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction by a court or community tribunal to a fine not exceeding GH¢5.00 or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months”.
Both the then Presiding Member of the KMA and the Metropolitan Co-ordinating Director signed the bylaws on sanitation on December 28, 1995.
The then Ashanti Regional Co-ordinating Director on behalf of the Ministry of Local Government also approved it.
This was 14 good years ago, an indication that if the rules and regulations on sanitation initiated by the KMA had been strictly enforced to the letter, the Ashanti Regional Minister would not have been launching a city-wide clean-up exercise today to reinforce the awareness on the filthy situation in the metropolis and its effect on the health of residents.
Last year, the KMA spent a huge amount of money to organise a clean up exercise in parts of the metropolis and its environs to clear the metropolis of filth.
A few weeks after President John Evans Atta Mills took over the governance of the country, the KMA, in collaboration with the Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA) also launched a clean-up exercise in the Kumasi metropolis in line with the President’s vision of keeping a clean environment.
In all these exercises and the time used in undertaking them, a lot of money is expended, but nothing had been done over the years to bring those who deliberately flout KMA’s bylaws to book to deter others.
It should be realised by now that the problem of keeping Kumasi clean and healthy lies in the strict enforcement of the KMA bylaws which was put in place more than 14 years ago.
Residents litter the streets with impunity because nothing restrains them from doing so.
How many residents have been arrested and prosecuted over the years for dumping solid and liquid waste into drains, gutters, streets and public places which have been the cause of the numerous communicable diseases that break out in Kumasi?
What about passengers who deliberately litter the streets, and traders who dump urine and other materials into gutters where they ply their trade?.
Through both the print and electronic media, public awareness has been regularly created over the negative attitudes of residents in Kumasi with regard to creating filth and their effects on the public.
Communicable diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, and typhoid fever among other equally deadly diseases, sometimes break out in Kumasi to take their toll on some unfortunate residents.
The media has always played a useful role by not only creating public awareness on the effects of unsanitary conditions, especially at residential areas, but have also supported public officers who sometimes initiated moves to create healthy environment as was done when the Ashanti Regional Minister launched the city –wide clean up exercise last week
What remains to be done is the political will to enforce the bylaws intended to regulate the action of residents to make them to strictly conform to the existing rules and regulations that governs sanitation.
Anything short of that would be a cosmetic measure to addressing the sanitation problem in Kumasi, not forgetting the huge cost involved in organising such clean-up exercises and the time spent in undertaking them.
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