Saddique Boniface - Sanitation Offenders Derail Govt's Agenda

By Jemima Esinam Kuatsinu

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Madina Constituency, Alhaji Abu-Bakar Saddique Boniface has asked politicians, chiefs and other influential people to stop pleading on behalf of sanitation offenders.

Their action, he explained, could derail efforts of the government and La-Nkwantanang Municipal Assembly in their attempt to fight against filth but prosecute sanitation offenders no matter who was pleading on their behalf.

Alhaji Saddique Boniface made the call at the commencement of a monthly clean-up exercise, organised in collaboration with the La-Nkwantanang Municipal Assembly, and supported by Zoomlion Waste Management Services Limited and Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS). It forms part of the MP's sanitation plan to engage with constituents to observe cleanliness and discipline in the municipality.

Speaking to constituents of the municipality, Alhaji Saddique Boniface said the exercise would be held on the last Saturday of every month as part of efforts to make the president's dream of making Accra, the cleanest city in West Africa sub-region a reality.

He expressed worry about the level of filth in the municipality, saying, "Madina municipality is arguably one of the fastest growing municipalities with large number of peri-urban areas in the region, becoming a security issue, I admit because there are no proper means of getting rid of filth in the municipality. Residents find it easy to dump filth in open drains, thereby compounding the sanitation situation."

"Madina sometime back, was always top on District Assemblies League Table but same cannot be said of the municipality in recent times since the assembly is nowhere near the top due to attitudes of indiscriminate littering recorded in the area," Alhaji Saddique Boniface observed.

The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for La-Nkwantanang Municipal Assembly (LaNMA), Jenifer Afadzadzi, assured that the Assembly would not relent in its mandate to ensure by-laws of the Assembly are adhered to by residents.

She indicated that the assembly had devised measures to ensure ceremonial streets in the municipality are kept clean after recent decongestion exercise, by cleaning the streets daily and providing litter bins at vantage points as well as educating residents to be disciplined coupled with prosecution of sanitation offenders, hopefully to change attitudes.

She appealed to residents to be on the look-out for people who stole litter bins provided by the assembly and disclosed that last month, 23 sanitation offenders were arrested and put before the municipal court as part of its anti-littering exercise.

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