C3.6 billion-a-month for Accra clean-up

Accra, April 26, GNA - About 3.6 billion cedis is spent monthly by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to dispose off waste within the metropolis, Mr Ben Mensah Laryea, Head of Waste Management unit of AMA said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the 15th Faculty of Science Colloquium-2006 at the University of Ghana Legon, Mr Laryea said AMA spent about 120 million cedis a day as payment to contractors to cart the refuse from Accra to Oblogo to dump the garbage.

"About 1,200 tonnes of waste is generated a day within the metropolis and the contractors charge 100,000 cedis per tonne of waste," he said.

Mr Laryea said, "Whenever there was plenty of sand in the waste, the contractors charge more for less waste carted due to the weight issue".

He therefore appealed to residents to minimise the amount of sand they put into their rubbish to enable the contractors cart more waste out of the city.

Mr Laryea admitted that there were times that a lot of waste was left uncollected for days because of the assembly's inability to pay some of the contractors.
"Waste disposal is capital intensive, because it is a daily generation activity, which takes about 50 per cent of the Assembly's resources, and there are times when we become seriously handicapped and are unable to pay our contractors," he said.
Mr Laryea said waste management was a shared responsibility and therefore appealed to all residents to play their expected roles in managing the city's waste, to make Accra the desired place to be. The colloquium was under the theme: "The Environment, Waste Management and the Health of the People".