President John Dramani Mahama has ordered the immediate opening and operationalisation of six waste transfer stations built over nine years ago.
The decision aims to facilitate the disposal of refuse gathered during the national clean-up campaign and prevent it from washing back into drainage systems during rainfall.
The directive followed an urgent appeal from Ahmed Ibrahim, Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, who highlighted the critical need for designated dumping sites for waste extracted from gutters.
Speaking on Saturday, 11 July, during the second day of the National General Cleaning exercise, President Mahama noted that leaving collected silt by the roadside only for it to wash back into the drains has been a recurring failure of past campaigns.
“Yesterday, one of the directives I gave was that in the past we do these clean-ups, we take all the garbage out of the gutters, but we don’t follow up and come and collect the garbage that is by the roadside. And so when the rain falls, it just washes all the dirt back in,” he said.
The second day of the campaign focused heavily on loading community and drainage waste onto trucks for immediate transit to approved sites.
Acknowledging that the sheer volume of refuse could not be cleared in 24 hours, the President confirmed that state agencies would maintain their operations until the task was complete.
“The army and the other agencies will continue until we are able to clear all the garbage that was taken out of the drains,” he stated.
The operationalisation of these stations means private and public waste collectors will no longer face long journeys to distant landfills like Amasaman. Instead, they can utilise these local hubs before the waste is bulk-transported to final disposal facilities.
“We’ve had six transfer stations that were built more than nine years ago. Unfortunately, they were not put into operation. So, we have asked the contractor to open the transfer stations that is the Zoomlion so that they can take the garbage to the transfer stations,” he said.
President Mahama concluded by praising the public’s commitment to restoring flood-affected areas, expressing confidence that this collective resilience would help Accra recover stronger.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
