The Tamale Metropolitan Assembly (TaMA) in collaboration with sanitation and waste management giant, Zoomlion Ghana Company Limited, on Monday, July 31, embarked on the evacuation of heaps of garbage at various dumping sites located in various communities in the metropolis.
The city authorities started the mass evacuation exercise earlier this year but had to put it on hold due to financial constraints.
Addressing Journalists, the Mayor of Tamale, Hon Sule Salifu said a total of about 24 dumping sites are expected to be cleared in various parts of the metropolis.
“In collaboration with Zoomlion, we’ve identified some number of sites – almost 30 dumping sites that we want to evacuate because during this raining season, if the evacuation is not done, we’re likely to be confronted with an outbreak of diseases” he said.
Pay As You Dump Policy
Hon Sule Salifu also called on the chiefs, community members and all stakeholders in the areas to adopt the “pay as you dump policy” introduced by the assembly.
He maintained it is time for the people to own and take full responsibility of the dumping sites and ensure the residents pay whilst they dump their refuse.
This, the Tamale Chief Executive believes will ensure that those managing the facilities will mobilize the needed funds for the frequent lifting of the refuse containers stationed in the communities.
He emphasized such enforcement would also ensure people stop the indiscriminate dumping of refuse in their respective communities.
“We want to urge the various Assembly members, the unit committees, the chiefs and people within these electoral areas to own these dumping sites so that we can practice this pay as you dump policy, so anybody coming to dump would pay a token, so that Zoomlion and the other stakeholders can have the resources to evacuate them when the time is due” he emphasized.
The Tamale MCE noted the assembly is confronted with developmental challenges in terms of furniture for school children, access roads, drainage systems among others.
He said this should be the last time the assembly is spending such huge resources on waste evacuation so the funds can be channeled to address other very important developmental gap in the metropolis.
Mr. Sule however commended the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralization and Rural Development for the financial support to undertake the exercise.
Meanwhile, Hon Issah Abubakari, Presiding Member of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly who doubles Assemblyman for Bilpela Electoral Area could not hide his excitement for his area being one of the beneficiary communities.
However, Mr. Issah observed the major challenge confronting the pay as you dump policy in some of the communities are the lack of communal containers.
“As an assembly we’ve realized that even as we’ve passed the pay as you dump policy not all the sites have containers and we’re in consultations with Zoomlion, and we’ve written to them to support us with more containers” he added.
Mr. Issah said the assembly was also considering other proposals to fix the situation, adding another step taken is liaising with managers of public toilets in these areas to use the funds raised daily to support the lifting of the refuse containers.
