By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Ghana has commenced the “Operation Clean Your Frontage”, a sanitation initiative to rid the Greater Accra Region of filth and green portions of the environment to enhance its aesthetic beauty and improve health.
The initiative will deploy the use of multiple approaches such as campaigns for attitudinal change, enforcement of bye-laws and logistics to drive residents not only to keep their immediate surroundings clean, but beautify them.
The campaign makes it mandatory for property owners of residential, private and public institutions and the citizenry to clean and green their frontages and all open spaces around their property.
Already, bye-laws for the enforcement of the campaign have been passed, officers employed and trained to enforce the bye-laws, including the arrest and prosecution of offenders.
However, a moratorium of two months has been placed for public education before enforcement of the laws begins.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo launched the initiative at a durbar at the Black Star Square on Friday.
Waste management company, Zoomlion Ghana Limited and the lead partner of the initiative, is providing 1,000 containerised motor tricycles and 58 compactors to be distributed to the 29 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) in the region to support the project.
President Akufo-Addo said the increasing population of Accra and the challenge of sanitation could “be overcome not just by the logistics and the bye-laws and the rules of engagement but also by a change in our attitude and behaviours”.
The President, who described himself as “an Accra boy” because he was born in Swalaba and grew up in Korle Woko, Adabraka and Nima, all suburbs of Accra, said at independence, Ghana’s population was six million, with Accra having a population of 200,000.
However, the latest population census indicated that Accra was occupied by five million people, with the nation’s population shooting up to 30.8 million.