Public must stop dumping refuse into drains – Accra mayor

Mrs Elizabeth Kwatsoe Tawiah Sackey, the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, has called on the Ghanaian public to put a stop to dumping of refuse into drains to avoid disasters.

In support of the efforts of the assembly to abate the flooding of the city following downpours, the Mayor of Accra launched the call under the hashtag “BorlaInDrainsMustStopNow: BorlaInGuttersMustStopNow.”

She said the practice of dumping refuse in gutters, throwing garbage on the streets created health problems and contributed to flooding whenever it rained and must be stopped.

“We must take up the responsibility of cleaning our environment. I want to use this opportunity to call on women in the country to play a pivotal role in maintaining cleanliness and hygiene in their communities.

“When you see somebody throwing something at the wrong place, I think it is nice to call the person to order. This is our beloved country. This is our motherland. This is a country that we cherish so much.

“And as we always travel outside, some people have cleaned the place and made it as it is. We can also do it. That is what I want all of us to take home.”

Mrs Sackey made the call when she addressed queen mothers at a day’s workshop, as part of activities for the commemoration of the 70th Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of England.

The workshop was on the theme: “Empowering Queen Mothers for Sustainable Community Development,” and was organised by the Queens Platinum Beacons under the auspices of Rotary International.

Its objective was to celebrate the monarch’s platinum jubilee and women’s achievements in Ghana; increase knowledge, create awareness and understanding of women issues globally; empower by building capacity of identified queen mothers in the country; and to lobby for accelerated gender parity and encourage female focused projects.

The AMA Chief Executive said the world was grappling with various issues ranging from mass migration, economic hardship, health crisis, climate change, and gender inequality, among others.

She stated that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by the UN General Assembly in 2015 aimed to transform development by taking on the key challenges that affects society, but “What is satisfying is that women possess the ideas and leadership to solving them and achieving each of these goals.”

She said the AMA would continue to enforce the sanitation by-laws while helping to undertake education of the public to avoid practices that were harmful to the environment.