Kumasi Mayor, Richard Ofori Agyemang Boadi, has warned that the city’s only landfill site could reach full capacity within the next 16 months unless an urgent €6 million is secured to construct two additional landfill cells.
He cautioned that failure to obtain the funding could leave the Ashanti Regional capital without a designated waste disposal site, further worsening the already dire sanitation situation in the metropolis.
Richard Ofori Agyemang Boadi speaking to the media
According to the Mayor, the problem has been compounded by the activities of seven other Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Ashanti Region, which dump their waste at the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) landfill without contributing financially to its maintenance or expansion, pushing the Assembly to the brink.
Mr. Ofori Agyemang Boadi said he is urgently lobbying the central government to appreciate the severity of the situation and release the €6 million needed to avert a potential breakdown in waste management in the city.
Speaking during a media engagement in Kumasi on Thursday, January 15, the Mayor said, “As we speak, within the next 14 to 16 months, if we are unable to construct two new cells, the place will be full, and we will not have anywhere to keep our waste.
“We need about six million euros to have it constructed. So there’s a lot of work that we have to do to be able to get the central government to appreciate the enormity of the task ahead when it comes to the waste management of the greater Kumasi enclave. But we are working, and we are knocking on doors.”
He added, “We are pushing. We believe that by the time we exhaust the space, something will come from the central government for us to be able to at least construct one new cell or two so that the situation will not get out of hand.”
The Mayor further admitted that the Assembly has struggled with sanitation, noting that some initiatives introduced by the previous administration inadvertently worsened the filth situation in the city.
As part of renewed efforts to improve sanitation, the KMA has announced that from February 1, cleaners in the metropolis will shift from midnight operations to dawn cleaning.
According to Mr. Ofori Agyemang Boadi, the move is aimed at ensuring streets remain clean into the morning and preventing the recurring problem of areas cleaned overnight becoming filthy again.
Source:Fati Aminu Ibrahim
