GARCC, Security Agencies commence decongestion of Accra

The Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council (GARCC), in collaboration with security agencies, Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Ablekuma Central and Korle Klottey Municipal Assemblies, has begun an operation to decongest and rid the capital of filth.

Also part of the exercise were security agencies including the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Ghana Navy together with workers of Zoomlion Ghana Limited (ZGL).

The exercise kicked off simultaneously on Tuesday, May 19, 2021, in the Korle Klottey and Ablekuma North Municipal Assemblies.

And it was under the “Let’s Make Accra Work Project” initiated by the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Henry Quartey, which forms part of his agenda to sanitise Accra.

It is aimed at paving the way for clean-up exercises to be carried out smoothly by the waste management companies in the various municipal assemblies within the Greater Accra Region.

Led by the regional minister and the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Korle Klottey, Nii Adjei Tawiah, the team began the exercise at the Graphic Road where unathorised makeshift containers were cleared on the shoulders of the road.
Some of the participants swept the shoulders of the road while others de-silted the choked gutters.

Also, people who were without nose masks were asked by the security personnel to partake in the exercise.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the exercise, Mr Quartey admonished residents in Accra to embrace and actively participate in the “Let’s Make Accra Work” campaign to make Accra look like the New York and Californias.

According to the regional minister, many unauthorised structures in the capital city have become nuisances to lots of legally operating businesses.

That situation, he lamented, was regrettable, looking at the fact that these businesses pay taxes to the government and have employees to take care of their salaries.

The regional minister could not fathom why pointed out why owners of these makeshift structures had refused to go and do business at a new location provided for them by the government.

The Greater Accra General Manager of Zoomlion, Mr Ernest Morgan Acquah, clarified that it was a decongestion exercise and not a demolition operation.
According to him, the municipal assemblies within the capital city were littered with loads of unauthorised structures, a situation which was hindering their work.

He said waste management was a shared task and not for an individual company, noting that what we are doing is to pave the way for the service providers to work to ensure that the capital is clean.”

On sustainable exercise, he categorically stated that a lot of tightening including security measures have been put in place to make sure these unauthorised structures do not find their way back to the municipalities.

In Ablekuma North at Darkuman Junction (Kokompe) where auto parts dealers were located, the team together with the assembly decongested and cleaned up the entire enclave.

In all, the exercise will be done in all the twenty-nine municipal assemblies of the Greater Accra Region. So far six (6) municipal assemblies have benefitted from the decongestion operation.