Accra streets to be named after trees

Accra, May 5, GNA- The Department of Parks and Gardens on Saturday indicated that it was considering planting particular flower trees along streets in the Accra Metropolis and then name the streets after the plants.

The Director of the Department, Mr Kwame Owusu-Afriyie, said the programme, to be carried out together with other Departments of the Ministry of Local Government, was part of the beautification of the city.

"We are looking forward to a time when you can describe the street or road in a city by the kind of colour of a flower plant, the name of a tree or medicinal plant. Thus we would have a Yellow Street, Blue Street, Red Street; or more traditionally Odum Street, Mahogany Street or Cashew Street.

"This is not like former times when these trees were not on the streets but named after them. The trees would actually be present ", Mr Owusu-Afriyie said, during a clean exercise organised on the 37-Airport Road, by Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a waste management company in Accra. During the exercise, which started at 0500 hours, and undertaken jointly by the company and the Department, the cleaners swept the road linking the 37 Military Hospital and the Junction of the Accra International Airport, picked all litters, cleaned gutters and weeded overgrown bushes along the road.

The road looked nicer, spick and span when the cleaners began painting the road lanes.

Mr Owusu-Afriyie said the Department would make it a policy to plant drought resistant trees, adding that it would seek the support of the Ghana

Water Company to assist in making water available for the plants. "By the bye-laws of the city, landlords and dwellers in the city are expected to landscape the frontage of their houses, and we expect that this would be enforced to make the city more attractive," Mr Owusu-Afriyie said.

Mr Oscar Provencal, Marketing and Public Relations Director of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, said the 37 Airport Road was a strategic location where all visitors to Ghana by air saw before they entered other parts of the country.

"It is a ceremonial road and the first point of call to any air traveler to Ghana, and it must be kept attractive at all times", adding "we must include beautification as a way of improving waste management service and make broader impact on environmental sanitation." Mr Provencal said the exercise, which was to be extended to other parts of Accra was to improve the appearance of major streets in Accra, towards to AU Summit and other important activities, including CAN 2008.

"We want individuals, organizations and companies (get involved)in waste management. Waste management is everybody's business," Mr Provencal said.