Last Friday another chapter was opened by the Greater Accra Regional Minister and the Regional Coordinating Council’s effort at giving the nation’s capital an image bereft of nauseating filth.
The project of letting Accra work is not an easy task and any assumption to the contrary shall not inure to the progress of the agenda.
It is only when we recognize the enormity of the task shall we be primed with the wherewithal to surmount the hurdle.
Getting people with a mindset of expecting state agencies to clean their frontages requires tact and subtlety to achieve and besides negative habits because they are ingrained in people and they don’t die off easily.
Being the capital of Ghana, Accra’s position as the threshold of Ghana is not a fact to be overemphasized. The cause of our tourism drive will be greatly served when we give Accra a fresh status.
The neat cities such as Kigali did not reach their enviable statuses without working towards where they are today.
We are quick to reserve beautiful adjectives for neat cities yet unable to come up with ideas to enable us to change the look of ours.
In matters requiring the participation of all it behooves the leaders at the forefront of the crusade to bring the people along. Educate them about the importance of the crusade and success in this direction will see them not only participating but ensuring that defaulters are identified and disciplined.
Sanitation has eluded assortment of interventions over time in a city engulfed with mounds of garbage some of them in front of shops and residences.
This time, what has been unfolded to address the challenge should work.
We have noticed the recalibration of the bylaws to meet the needs of the times. The MCEs should be tasked to let the bylaws work.
We would suggest that efforts are made to educate the people about these bylaws and the applicable sanctions in case of defaults.
The local authorities should provide receptacles for the collection of the garbages originating from the frontage cleanup. It is unacceptable when collected garbage eventually return to the gutters from which they were removed.
We are convinced that when we get this right it can constitute the nucleus for a major response to our sanitation challenge.
We urge the Greater Accra Regional Minister to apply the finesse and tact he used for the onion market relocation operation.
Accra can only work again when measures such as the clean your frontage campaign is enforced with commitment and focus.