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Building a Ghana beyond filth – Do your part by cleaning your environment

We are clamouring for a Ghana beyond aid, but it's time to fight for a Ghana beyond filth too....

Drive around the various cities and you would realise that apart from corruption, filth is the next singular most debilitating menace that has caused Ghana to be in its current state.

Despite numerous interventions over the last two decades, the situation seems to rather be worsening. So what is the problem? Or, better still, what are the solutions?

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President Akufo-Addo has sought to push the “Ghana Beyond Aid” mantra, which is geared towards getting to a level where the country does not need to borrow to survive.

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But how about a “Ghana Beyond Filth” campaign too?

Earlier this year, Street Hygiene Ambassador (SHA), Evangelist Bright Adoboe, observed that a whopping 86% of Ghana’s environment is filled with filth.

As worrying as the situation is, there seems to be no mapped out plan from either government or citizens to help mitigate the menace.

The situation is much more damning when you consider the fact that the structures to lead the reforms are either not functioning properly or totally non-existent.

Statistics from UNCEF indicate that less than 15% of Ghanaian households have handwashing facilities. The findings also indicate that only 15% of Ghanaians have access to improved sanitation, well short of the 2015 goal of 54%. Also, currently, one out of every five Ghanaians has no access to a toilet and defecate in the open.

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The Northern parts of the country, in particular, have an open defecation rate of over 70%, whiles the coastal areas in the southern and western parts of the country are no different.

Consequences of a filthy Ghana

A nation that is filled with filth is bound to suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, Ghana is a country that has woefully failed to arrest its issues of sanitation and, as a result, the consequences have been brutal.

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Figures from UNICEF indicate that about 4,000 Ghanaian children die each year from diarrhea, with an even larger number dying from pneumonia. These are preventable diseases, yet we stand and watch our children, brothers, sisters, friends and other acquaintances die. For how long will we let our sloppy and careless actions take away precious lives?

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It is estimated that Ghana loses close to 290 million dollars due to poor sanitation and bad hygiene practices. Part of this money goes into initiating policies to solve the sanitation issues, whiles the other part is used to import drugs and to treat those who have suffered hygiene-related sicknesses.

We might not care today, but gradually we will all feel the effects. These huge sums could have been used for building more schools, constructing more roads or even financing other community projects. However, it has been channeled into waste management, into filth produced and scattered around the country by our own selves. How disheartening!

Everybody must take blame

There is a popular saying in the Ga language that goes like: “To find a solution to something, one must first admit that there is a problem somewhere.” The biggest low among many Ghanaians is the penchant to apportion blame to one another whenever a problem arises.

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However, to tackle the sanitation problem that has blighted the nation since Dr. Kwame Nkrumah announced our independence, there is the need for everyone to take blame.

It is very easy to find certain classes of people exempting themselves from blame but, in truth, every Ghanaian has contributed one way or the other to the rubbish and choked gutters we find all around the cities.

Although much of the blame may go to the market woman, the pure water seller and the food vendor, the office-based banker and the medical doctor can also not be exempted from blame.

When you sit in your car and throw that rubber through the windows, you are guilty; when you walk on the street and spit around, you are guilty; and when you drop that sachet water in a nearby gutter, you are equally guilty.

But until we all begin to take blame and be responsible for our actions, there is no way we can find solutions to our sanitation issues. We must shoulder the blame, then we can react to counter the menace.

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What we must do

In the last decade, there have been various policies designed to make sure that Ghana moves from a nation filled with filth to one that glows like a paradise. Quite recently, in 2017, just three months after Akufo-Addo had become president, he pledged that his government will make Accra the cleanest city in Africa.

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“The commitment we are making and which I want you all to make with me is that by the time we end our four-year term, Accra is going to be the cleanest city in Africa,” he said.

But realising the magnitude of the pledge he had made, President Akufo-Addo called on the general public to support and cooperate to make it a reality.

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Tackling the filth that has taken over the country is not an easy task – it is no longer a peripheral issue, but one of national concern. Therefore, there is the need for a collaborative effort from both bourgeois and proletariats if we are to make a headway in the fight. Everyone must get involved – politicians and commoners, office workers and traders, parents and children, teachers and students.

Accra can truly become the neatest city in Africa, but it will not become so because the President said it. Action must be taken to back up the talk. For so many years, all we have done is to talk, talk and talk with little action being taken. That must change. And the time is now.

In recent times the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and other metropolitan and municipal assemblies have taken steps to make sure the littering of the various cities is brought to a halt.

Fines have often been issued to defaulters, however, it has proven not to be enough to serve as deterrent to others. And that is because these fines are too paltry to serve as deterrent to anyone, really.

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We are often vibrant in enforcing laws when there is an outbreak of a disease or a disaster occurs, yet after a month or two, that sort of vibrant urge to tackle the menace quenches. Perhaps it’s now time for some consistency, time to sustain our efforts. No more should we say ‘oh this place is now better than before so let’s relax the seriousness with which we take our sanitation’. That way, we would gradually and surely turn our cities into the paradise that we dream of.

Time to do your part – clean, clean and clean

Who said Accra cannot become the cleanest city in Africa? With effort, commitment and determination, the capital could be truly transformed, sans filth and littering. We do not have to look very far to see that it is possible. Right across in Uganda, Paul Kagame is leading this sort of transformation and the results are there for all to see.

So why not pick up that broom or that mob or that shovel or that rake and start something. Let’s help to clean our homes and contribute to the cleaning of our cities in every little way we can.

We are crying for a Ghana beyond aid; but how about a Ghana beyond filth too? We can make it happen.

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Let’s make it happen!

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