The issue of waste management continues to be a bane and stumbling block to Ghana’s quest to achieve the cleanest city in Africa feat.
And its management requires funds and logistics to be able to tackle the menace head on and rid the city and the country in general of waste.
This, therefore, explains why government has instituted a sanitation and pollution levy (SPL) to accrue revenue to keep Ghana’s environment clean.
Caretaker Finance Minister, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu made the announcement on Friday, 12 March 2021 when he delivered the 2021 budget.
He said: “notwithstanding the progress that we have made in the areas of sanitation and pollution, there is still a lot more to be done.”
The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs listed them as follows:
i. Improve urban air quality and combat air pollution;
ii. Support the re-engineering of landfill sites at Kpone and Oti;
iii. Support fumigation of public spaces, schools, health centres and markets;
iv. Revamp/reconstruct poorly managed landfill facilities;
v. Construct more sustainable state-of-the-art waste treatment plants both solid and liquid in selected locations across the country;
vi. Construct waste recycling and compost plants across the country;
vii. Construct more sanitation facilities to accelerate the elimination of open defaecation.
viii. Construct final treatment and disposal sites for solid and liquid waste;
ix. Provide dedicated support for the annual maintenance and management of major landfill sites and other waste treatment plants and facilities across the country; and
x. Construct medical waste treatment facilities to prevent generation of infectious diseases especially under the Coronavirus Treatment Programme.
The decision by government has been necessitated by calls by stakeholders in the waste sector which regard the scarcity of funds and logistics as the greatest obstacles to waste management in the country.
With the introduction of this levy, it is expected that waste which sometimes overflows the bins in households in particular and public places and left for a long time before being collected would be a thing of the past as the levy comes in as a panacea to the waste management challenges confronting the country.
This is where Zoomlion Ghana limited (ZGL), a subsidiary of Jospong Group of companies comes in as an expert in the field of waste management to complement the efforts of government in ensuring that Ghana indeed becomes clean.
In what appears to be an anticipated dream of government’s decision, the Executive Chairman of the group, Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, gifted with prescience and foresight, had long ago secured sophisticated equipment and installed plants for the management of all the aforementioned waste management categories as captured by the Minister’s budget statement.
This singular feat by Zoomlion’s boss triggered by his vision and precision has further accentuated people’s belief that he is a real McCoy and that, given the necessary support, coupled with the company’s multifaceted expertise and track record, the slogan “Ghana is the Cleanest city in Africa” will no longer be a mirage but a reality.