The officials during the exercise
The Minister of Inner Cities and Zongo Development, Abubakar Saddique Boniface, last Saturday led a clean-up exercise at Nima.
He bemoaned poor sanitary conditions in many Zongo communities, which he said may lead to the outbreak of diseases if immediate measures are not taken to the arrest the situation.
The Minister said, “You will reduce poverty when you enhance sanitation, because at the end of the day, diseases like malaria will be reduced and we will have fresh air to breath, so it is important we keep our environment clean, and this is also to support the President’s vision of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa, said Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface.
The Minister for Inner City and Zongo Development said the cleaning of the municipality is in keeping with President Nana Addo’s pledge of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa.
According to the Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina in the Greater Accra Region, the Ministry is embarking on clean-up exercises which focus on cleaning solid waste, street corners, drains, backyards and public open spaces.
He said that his Ministry would not relent on its efforts until the Zongo communities are cleaned as part of the ‘Clean Zongo’ project by the Ministry.
He said the Ministry is looking at developing sanitation entrepreneurs to provide jobs for the teeming unemployed Zongo youth.
According to him, the president created the Zongo Ministry so that many years of neglect of these parts of the country would be reversed.
He explained that the establishment of the Ministry is the first of its kind on the continent.
“Even though Nigeria has the largest Zongo communities, they have not been able to create a target Ministry for their development,” he added.
On his part, the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources and MP for Navorogo Central, Kofi Adda, pledged his support for the ‘Clean Zongo’ campaign.
He said as part of the Nation Builders Corp agenda, many more sanitation guard module would be rolled out to help check indiscriminate littering in the Zongo communities across the country.
He expressed his gratitude to Zoomlion, Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), among other stakeholders, for supporting the initiative and added that the clean-up exercise should be sustained.
Celebrated musicians and actors, among others, were there to endorse the exercise and whip up enthusiasm among Zongo dwellers to keep the Zongos clean.
The exercise was supervised by the Chief Director of the Ministry, Gifty Mahama, Dr Sarfo Ohene, Special Advisor to the Minister of Inner-City and Zongo Development, Mohammed Alhassan, Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME), Princess Amina Sammo, Director of Projects and Programmes, Cletus Anafu, Director of Finance and Administration.
Stephen Dapaah, Deputy Director of PPME, outlined plans for the roll out of more clean-up exercises in the coming years.