A former Chief Executive of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly, David Annan has blamed the current troubles of the Kpone landfill site on lack of investment.
Mr. Annan was MCE when the plan for the landfill was initiated between 2005 and 2009.
But subsequent leaders have failed to build on the plants existing infrastructure, he said on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday.
“It saddens my heart that we only go in and dump [refuse]. I get very angry when I see the people who are the pioneers of waste management in our country today. They think about only what they are going to be paid. They don’t invest in getting it done in a manner that will bring sanity into the area. Now go there; we have more like a mountain in just a couple of years.”
There are also concerns that the trucks don’t pay enough as a dumping fee but Mr. Annan said is was no excuse for the lack of financial investment.
“I would have liked that they say that the money you have given us is not good and we can’t do the work than rather go and do shoddy work and punish everybody again for it.”
Mr. Annan suggested that as a temporary measure, the land around the landfill could be quickly developed to complement the main site.
“There are other pits beside it which also need to be reclaimed. It was all part of the project but they are not using those areas now. They can use them in a very engineered manner while the government and everybody think about how to get a processing plant.”
The Kpone landfill site has exceeded its available capacity and is struggling to accommodate waste from waste management companies.
There are concerns that this will take a toll on sanitation in Accra and the environment.
“If the waste still comes in high volumes, probably by June or September [2019], there will be higher challenges of cars even climbing and it is not only about the cars. As we dump above a certain height, the emission of the gases will also have direct interference with the ozone which is going to create problems so some of these things have to be reconsidered,” the Tema Metropolitan Assembly’s representative at the Kpone Landfill Site, Ernest Lanson, said on the Citi Breakfast Show.
