Zoom Alliance Company in collaboration with Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, on Saturday, launched a programme dubbed: “One month intensive clean-up exercise in Accra.”

The regional exercise, which would cover Accra, would focus on markets with refuse collection points, communities with heaps of refuse and some drains.

Mr Agyemin Boateng Adjei, Managing Director of Zoom Alliance said the modules for the exercise include intensive weekend clean-up exercises and mop-ups, monitoring and enforcement of good sanitation practices at operational sites on week-days by operatives, under the supervision of project coordinators.

Mr Adjei said the exercise would also reclaim evacuated lands by filling them with laterite and levelling them, identify drains for dredging and clean-ups, and maintain security presence to deter people from indiscriminate dumping of refuse after the exercise.

“It is our expectation that after the end of the exercise, all refuse collection points at identified market places would have been cleaned, drains be desilted and refuse transported to final disposal site, and the public educated to avoid indiscriminate littering,” he said.

Mr Kwasi Oppong-Fosu, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development said the exercise is timely since the city is engulfed with filth.

He observed that the ceremony would send a signal to the public to ensure environmental cleanliness.

Mr Oppong-Fosu said environmental cleanliness is a shared responsibility and, therefore, all must be involved in the exercise.

He expressed the need for public education on the dangers of poor sanitation to effect attitudinal change.

Mr Julius Debrah, Greater Accra Regional Minister, said the public should complement the efforts of Zoom Alliance Company by keeping the environments clean.

He appealed to the public to embrace the exercise to prevent diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea in their vicinities

The ceremony witnessed a practical field work by the officers of the Zoomlion cleaning and desilting areas like Nungua old cemetery and the Agbogbloshie market.