The Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources is pushing local assemblies to levy fees on contracted garbage collectors who fail to collect or delay in collecting piles of refuse in various communities.
Freda Prempeh, the sector minister, stated this while inspecting areas along the Odaw River and Nima Maamobi following the recent rains.
Prempeh expressed her dissatisfaction with the grave situation of bad sanitation and highlighted that levying surcharges on garbage collectors was an essential measure to compel them to fulfill their commitments and ensure timely rubbish collection.
“We cannot always sit back for government to look for money to evacuate refuse, to drill drains, to dredge drains, to desilt gutters, we have to change our attitude. This refuse you see behind me is under the purview of the assembly. They have signed contracts with private service providers, and they are supposed to ensure that private service providers clear and collect the garbage.”
“We should not sit down as an assembly and take excuses from the service providers that my car has broken down and all that. There should be a provision in the by-law to surcharge them. If they don’t pick up the refuse on time, they should be surcharged. So as an assembly, we will collaborate with you but all these refuse is under the purview of the assemblies, and they are supposed to ensure that it is cleared by the private service providers,”
Ms Prempeh also stated her willingness to participate in negotiations about the creation of specialized environmental courts to improve the efficiency of prosecuting sanitation-related charges.
This is in response to increasing requests highlighting the need of these specialist courts in expediting sanitation issues, which usually face delays when presented to district courts.
“I don’t think it is just about delayance at the court… The advocacy is still on, but I believe together as a ministry, the Regional Coordinating Council and the assemblies, we should be able to put our heads together and ensure that the right thing is done. I believe that if we enforce our by-laws we will not be taking people to the sanitation courts. So we have to start from the basis, from where the problem is coming from and that is the gap. And once we’ve been able to find the problem we should be able to solve it,” she noted.
