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Opinions of Saturday, 4 June 2005

Columnist: Lartey-Adjei, Festus K.

Ghana's Beaches the Dirtiest II

Last week saw my article about the dirt on our beaches, raw untreated latrine being dumped into the sea, the squatting in nima and the poverty all shown on an european TV channel.

I thank the author for promptly publishing it on the Ghanaweb. there has been many reponses from fellow Ghanaians wishing to congratulate me for voicing out. I thank all of them.

My particular thanks go to Miss Linda Schindler an American who wished me Gods blessing for pointing the issue out.

Fellow countrymen, these are excerpts of what Linda a foreigner wrote to me;

I visited there last summer, and indeed the beaches were horrible. As a matter of fact, we were eating in a nice open air restaurant in Cape Coast only to have several young men walk to right in front of the restaurant, drop their pants, and shit right in front of us. Men urinate everywhere, there was no garbage system in Accra or anywhere else and the garbage was dumped right on the street. Getting used to the stench was really hard.

Also, in Accra, the sewage system is comprised of gutters along the roads everywehre where raw sewage runs into a canal in the middle of town! A huge canal of raw sewage! It was really a rude awakening! People throw garbage everywhere because you will never find a trash can to put your garbage in. The streets are deep in garbage, especially the plastic bags that sachets of water come in.

I wonder how people survive in this filth!

I must add though, the Ghanaians are amoung the finest and friendlist people in the world. Ihave several friends there and love them dearly and can hardly wait to go back. It amazes me that Ghana is trying to build a tourist industry, but until they clean up the filth in the streets and the sewage system, the beaches, and also the corrupt policemen who harass white tourists, it will not come to pass.

God bless you for speaking out! Linda USA

Thank you very much for adding your voice to our cry and for loving our country, dirty as we are! Linda God bless you. I have still not finished crying within me for my poor motherland after the fateful program, I am still at a lost as to what exactly to do, not that we dont know what to do but the fact that there are people in high places who pose as lovers of our nation but in reality are anti- people in their actions and decisions. We love our country and we will do all we can to salvage the respect it deserves.

One thing is clear, we will not stop here, and until we see a change, we will pursue those in charge and make them to account if they refuse to act. We are desperate and we will demand an answer now or tomorrow.

This documentary on the Swedish channel 1 has caused us lost revenue through the indirect advice to tourists to stay away from Ghana. Not only that, the disgrace and the fact that people are still dying because of the filth..

But there is another side of the issue which is worth mentioning;

We thank the Swedish whose programme has exposed our filthy dirty way of living as well as the hipocrisy, greed, lack of concern for the environment and our inaction. We need more of these programms! And I assure all fellow Ghanaians that they will stay posted on the issues.

I also thank Joy FM for bringing the issue to Ghanaians who are not on the net. Thanks!, we are all in it together. Keep up the good work Joy FM.

Fellow countrymen, the president himself comes from Kumasi, and on the way to Kumasi his hometown, he will have to cross the river Densu through Nsawam.

My next question is to his excellency Mr. President.

When did you ever stop your motorcade over the dying densu rivers brigde to access the dirt, the waste and filth which characterises the popular river, the river which flows into the Weija dam where most people in Accra including you yourself Mr. president drink from?. Oh, and by the way, what is the news from Weija itself?.

Unlike the minister for the modernisation of the modern and the minister for works and contracts who refused to answer us the downtrodden on the article I wrote concerning the dirt on our beaches and Nima, I am sure your excellency is an honest and respectable man who will promptly answer us, the crying and weeping people of the motherland.

Maybe your ministers refused to answer us due to a lack of 10%??. We demand an explanation and we wont stop asking until you tell us the concrete plans your government has in place to clean up the mess, to protect our waters, beaches and environment.

Please, Mr. President show the way. And if you dont know how just find advice, all you need is to prioritise the issue and the rest will follow. We literally are begging you to prioritise these issues because they are our life, our breath and our hope for survival let alone talk of our honour.

These are even more important than building motorways.

Clean air, Clean waters, my goodness a clean environment!!!!!!!!! This is all we are asking and you can buy yourselves as many and expensive cars as you want. We the common people who dont have air condition cars, houses and offices also want to live a little longer. Can you do us that favour Mr. President? God bless you if you at least will try your best.



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