The minister and the mayor during the exercise
WORKS AND Housing Minister Samuel Atta Akyea has given thumbs up to Kumasi Mayor Osei Assibey-Antwi for being on top of his game on sanitation issues.
He said he was particularly pleased with the effectiveness of the mayor in managing filth in the boisterous city, urging him to sustain his good works.
According to him, Kumasi is now looking beautiful mainly because the mayor was handling the sanitation situation effectively.
The minister even urged the mayor of Accra to ‘emulate’ Osei-Assibey’s approach in handling filth because in his opinion, it would rid the capital city of filth to a large extent.
Atta Akyea passed the comments after he had witnessed a night clean-up exercise by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) to make the city look spick and span.
Per the KMA’s approach, the entire city, especially the Central Business District (CBD), is cleaned and gutters desilted regularly ahead of the next business day.
Atta Akyea, who was accompanied by his deputy, Eugene Boakye Antwi, toured Kumasi on Friday evening to observe the KMA’s night clean-up exercise aimed at desilting choked gutters at Adum, Alabar, Kejetia, Pampaso, Asafo and other suburbs of Kumasi.
“I must commend the mayor of Kumasi. I never knew that what happens in London is also happening in Kumasi,” Atta Akyea told journalists, adding “a situation where drainages and the streets are cleaned in the night and the next day the city will be cleaned is laudable.”
“I will tell the mayor of Accra to liaise with his counterpart in Kumasi to replicate the kind of arrangement where people work in the night to clean the city,” he said.
According to him, the meteorological agency had warned that there would be a lot of rains this year, so the need for the country to prepare appropriately, and the exercise would help prevent unnecessary flooding.
Assibey-Antwi stated that the KMA started the night cleaning exercise immediately he took office, adding that the strategy was working to perfection.
He also saluted the ministers for travelling from Accra to Kumasi to team up with the KMA to clean the city on Friday evening and Saturday morning.
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi