Filth In Accra

"Sanitation has become a topical issue that we can hardly ignore. Our cities and municipalities in particular have become engulfed in filth as evidenced by the increasing heaps of rubbish that we encounter by our roads and residential areas" -President J.A. Kufour

FILTH IN ACCRA

Is Accra really deserving of the title Capital City?

For a city that is playing host to millions of tourists next year for Ghana's golden jubilee celebrations as well as the CAN 2008 football tournament the next year, Accra has definitely not got its act right. The main authority in charge of the city's sanitation and maintenance, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) still has a lot to learn about managing an ever-expanding city of over 3 million inhabitants.

Firstly, the unplanned nature of some areas of the city makes it difficult for the authorities concerned to formulate a meaningful waste disposal plan. This is partly due to the history of settlement in Accra. In general terms, Accra's rapid growth has occurred without the benefit of consistent and coordinated planning. During the colonial era, physical-planning activities occurred only in areas where the colonial administrators and expatriate personnel lived . Beyond the high-class residential areas, the city developed in a disorderly manner creating a fragmented urban structure . An example of such a poorly planned area is Awoshie, a suburb of Accra. It is almost an impossible mission for garbage trucks to meander through the narrow, unnamed streets of such a suburb to pick up refuse. The AMA is also losing substantial revenue because most houses have no numbers and cannot be identified to be served with demand notices for the collection of property tax. The provision of street names and numbering of houses will thus help in the collection of revenue through the property tax system. This will finance the effective, regular disposal of waste and the surplus used for other development projects in the area.

Rapid urbanisation, coupled with rural-urban migration makes the job of the AMA even more difficult. Rural dwellers move to Accra in search of nonexistent jobs, and end up homeless. This influx places a stress on the city's resources. Poverty further catalyses this problem to create vast slums and shanty towns, an example of being Sodom and Gomorrah in the south of Accra. These are not only an eyesore, but also pose a health hazard as they are usually the starting point of epidemics such as cholera and typhus.

The indifference of the Ghanaian public towards good sanitary practices is also another factor which contributes to the degradation of Accra's sanitation. Taking a walk along some of the beaches on the coast of Accra early in the morning on any day will reveal a good number of folks defecating, dumping rubbish or indulging in some other similarly filthy activity. These beaches are a great natural resource which when harnessed properly could be of enormous economic benefit to the nation through tourism. More resorts and recreational centres could be established along our beaches if we kept them clean, and the prestige attached to clean, white, sandy tropical beaches would do well to increase our yearly influx of tourists. A country like Mauritania, which has tourism as the third pillar of its economy, earns about $1.73 billion annually, constituting 11% of their gross domestic product (GDP) . In Ghana however, tourism presently contributes to only 3.5 % of GDP.

There is a need to raise public awareness about the issues surrounding the maintenance of a clean environment. There should be a sustained program of public education to tackle the ideology of a poor sanitary culture of the urban Ghanaian. To have a meaningful effect, this campaign should address the issue as a matter of patriotic, economic, social and aesthetic importance. For those who are ignorant of the effects of their pollutant habits, it would at least be an eye-opener. One such laudable attempt at raising public awareness and concern was the campaign against indiscipline and environmental sanitation championed by the Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama.

One solution to the problem of Accra's waste management would be for the government to encourage the setting up of more recycling plants to deal with the large amounts of waste generated by the city's inhabitants. Thankfully, some steps are being taken in that direction. On the 29th of September 2006, a plastic waste recycling plant was opened in Accra. This plant has the capacity to recycle about 300 tonnes of plastic waste a month. If more of such ventures are encouraged, the problem of excessive plastic waste in the country will be reversed. Instead, the waste will become transformed into a major resource producing recycled raw materials for local use and