Cecilia Abena Dapaah, Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources (MSWR) says the country loses about $290 million annually due to poor sanitation in the country.
She said the amount is equivalent to $12 per person per year which translates to 1.6% of the country’s GDP.
Speaking at the Meet the Press Series in Accra on Tuesday, the Minister however was hopeful that the President Akufo-Addo’s vision of making Accra the cleanest city would be achieved after the end of the President’s second term in office.
“In sha Allah, the president would go for two terms and at the end, Accra would have been the cleanest and the battle is still the lord’s. His Excellency the president is so serious with this call to all of us, to make Accra the cleanest and Ghana a clean country. He has put the Ministry of Sanitation and Natural Resource on the top priority list of government to be able to access the budget that we need,” she added.
However, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Klottey Korle Constituency, Zanetor Rawlings is fully convinced that the Akufo-Addo government won’t be able to achieve its dream of making the national capital, Accra, the cleanest city in Africa by 2020.
Speaking on Point Blank on Eyewitness News, few weeks ago, she noted that the almost three-year-old agenda smacks of failure as the city continues to struggle to manage waste.
“…I don’t see the necessary things in place for it to happen. You are still seeing the refuse everywhere. The amount of refuse left behind when the water receded after the flooding was quite phenomenal.”
“We are in our third year since that promise was made. Accra is nowhere near becoming the cleanest city in West Africa, let alone on the continent,” she added.
Years after the President’s announcement, many have doubted the President’s vision since nothing significant has been undertaken to rid the city of its heavy filth, except the launch of a national sanitation campaign which is yielding no result.