Flag bearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has assured to collapse the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources and merge it with the Local Government Ministry.
John Mahama, giving his reasons said apart from saving the nation some cost, President Akufo-Addo’s ‘making Accra the cleanest city in Africa’ has become a fiasco despite creating a ministry to see to its realisation.
According to Mahama, the capital city looks dirtier than than when there was no Sanitation ministry.
Speaking with students of the Wisconsin International University College in Accra Wednesday, April 03, 2024, John Mahama said there was no need keeping that ministry to drain the State coffers.
“We will close down the Ministry of Sanitation, one to reduce expenditure and two, I don’t see any use. Our country is dirtier than when there was no ministry of Sanitation. Indeed this country was cleaner when our country was under local government than as a standalone ministry and so we’ll close down that ministry and we’ll take the sanitation schedule back to local government,” he noted.
John Mahama said Sanitation was the work of the district assemblies and that is going to be replicated.
“With cleanliness, we think that it’s the duty of the District Assemblies. Every assembly has an obligation to make sure that its district is clean and so we must decentralise sanitation to the district level,” he assured.
John Mahama also relayed his intentions of merging the Transport and Aviation ministries, as well as Information and Communication, revealing that he will make appointment of DCEs based on how clean their districts are.
“Because we want to reduce government expenditure, it’s not only the Sanitation Ministry, in transport, Aviation and Railway, we are going to close them down and send them to the transport ministry. We are going to combine Information and Communications again, and so we want to reduce the number of ministries,” he stated.
“So when we are going to change district chief executives and you have a dirty district, we’ll remove you and bring someone who can make sure that the district is clean,” he added.