The Minister of Sanitation and Water resources, Joseph Kofi Adda has urged Ghanaians not to expect that the huge sanitation problems in the country will be fixed overnight.
Some Ghanaians have demanded the dismissal of the Sanitation Minister over his failure to deal with sanitation issues in the country a year after his appointment. The calls for the Minister to be sacked intensified after he recently assigned people to clean up refuse near the Australian High Commission right after the High Commissioner's tweet went viral.
Members of the public have also suggested to the President that the Sanitation ministry should be scrapped and its stipulated role played out by the Local government Ministry to deal with the filth, especially in the Capital.
However, the sanitation minister, Joseph Kofi Adda who dismissed calls for his dismissal insisting he has been effective, assured that Accra will be the cleanest city by the middle of this year.
“The overnight solution people are looking for in the Sanitation Ministry you’ll not get that… You want the Minister to go out there tomorrow with a broom and wheelbarrow to collect the waste, that’s not the Minister’s job. I think they have to go back and understand what is the role of the Minister to start with and how should he collaborate with the others.
“I bet you, by the middle of this year, you’ll find a totally transformed sanitation sector in this country that will last the test of time and that’s where I’ll be most effective.â€
Sanitation Minister criticizes Australian High commissioner
Sanitation and Water Resources Minister, Joseph Kofi Adda recently criticized the Australian High Commissioner to Ghana for taking to social media to complain about filth in parts of Accra.
He described the Diplomat’s claims as baseless, adding that the group of sanitation workers spotted in the Cantonments area clearing up the refuse were already scheduled to be there as part of an exercise by the Ministry to ensure that the entire country is cleaned.
“Really it’s not the High Commissioner who is telling us what to do. We have a programme, it’s just that we’ve not really done enough good job in keeping up with what we’re supposed to do. But we have mechanisms, we have people deployed to these places, so we appreciate the concern of the High Commissioner.
“But we think that he should have contacted us in the Ministry or contacted the Chief Executive of the AMA, to understand our side of the story to really make sure that the right people are there to do what the ought to do. Going on social media doesn’t really address this matter from a government to government point of view. I think on that note, he’s not done well, nonetheless, we’ve had the results.†he said.