Zoomlion Ghana’s Upper West Regional Team, in collaboration with Sissala East Municipal Assembly, on Wednesday, August 2, 2023 established three unapproved waste dumping sites in Tumu to allow for the free flow of water and prevent disease as a result of drinking polluted water.
The herps are a creation of residence within the setup of the electoral area after many years of dumping waste onto the area. These herps were located within Moshie Zongo in the Nanyua electoral area, Tumu station of the Zongo extension, and Kusunjan.
The Regional Manager of Zoomlion, Mr. Abubakari Naafiu Antuowini, speaking with the Sissala Radio news team, said the dredging exercise is a timely intervention because, as a result of the rainy season, the Region might have to record outbreaks of diseases like cholera. Adding that “we need to clear these herps; this has been identified by the assembly, and prevent it before it affects our people”.
The Regional Manager cited the negligence and attitude of the people towards sanitation as the results of the situation, notwithstanding the containers and dustbins kept at advantage points for waste to be kept in.
Mr. Naafiu indicated that “our office has kept a container at this place, yet people still choose to put rubbish on the ground”. He said there is a huge cost associated with solving sanitation problems, though waste in some parts of the world is a resource that can be recycled into electricity using RDS machines.
On the other hand, the Municipal Chief Executive for Sissala East, Hon. Fuseini Yakubu Batong, revealed that the assembly and the environmental department have instituted a quarterly clean-up exercise in the municipality to clean and clear the capital from filth. “After assessing the plastic situation in the municipality, we instituted a quarterly clean-up campaign. Every three months, we go out to clean the environment. I want to urge all communities to equally use the opportunity to clean their surroundings on such days”. He noted, “While I want to applaud those who took part in the exercise but others refused, including some shop owner’s decision to open their stores during the period, next time we are thinking of collaborating with the military to help us get people who would want to disobey the decision”.
Additionally, to improve the sanitary condition in the area, the MCE encourages the residents to collect the trash in the dustbins from Zoomlion. He has, however, implored the management of Zoomlion to regularly empty individual household dustbins as required. He also reminded the region to add more containers to the existing ones to support the fight against littering in the environment. “I informed them to top up as the current number of containers wouldn’t be enough to accommodate the huge number of trashes; as a municipality, we are supposed to have about 18 of such containers, but we currently have 11 of such containers”.
Assembly member for Kusunjan Electoral Area, Mr. Yaligia Prosper, on his part, tasked members of the area to desist from putting up construction work on the dredged area as the area struggles for space to hold a program and also ensure ashes does not contain flames of fire before putting it onto the trash container.
Source: Sissala Radio