Modernization not about cleaning - Expert explains

Accra, July 20, GNA - Modernization of a Capital City is not all about cleaning dirty gutters or picking up plastic waste but about people and re-generation, an expert on the Modernization of the Capital City said on Tuesday.

Mr Crosby Tekyi-Mills, Coordinator at the Ministry of Tourism and Modernization of the Capital City, said many people had the wrong notion that the modernization of the capital city was only about cleaning. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, Mr Tekyi-Mills said the Modernization of the Capital City Portfolio was created to facilitate the development of a competitive capital city to make it a destination of choice for international gathering, attract investment and boost tourism.

"Of course we can not modernize a dirty city, so we are collaborating with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and some Ministries to enable us to do it successfully", he said.

Mr Tekyi-Mills said currently, the Sector was working to change the wrong public perception about the project, adding, "modernization is a generational thing, it takes many generations to achieve a modernized city".

He said by September, the Ministry would cut the sod for the construction of three, four and five star hotels in the capital city as part of the modernization programme.

"The establishment of a street market, rehabilitation of the Bukom Square and the development of the old harbour into a modern fishing harbour would soon start," he said.

Mr Tekyi- Mills observed that the Capital city was commercially congested, had inadequate sanitation, drainage and sewerage systems that made it a non-functioning capital.

"A modern city is one that has effective security, can provide safe and easy movement, has decent monuments, memorials and statues, good shopping centres, effective road network, recreational facilities and effective street lighting," he said.

Mr Tekyi-Mills called for attitudinal change and lifestyles of Ghanaians to enable the City to attain proper sanitary conditions to become a modernized city.