Ghana’s deteriorating sanitation heart-breaking
Former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings has bemoaned the
deteriorating state of Ghana’s sanitation, noting that it breaks her
heart.
According to Mrs. Rawlings, she has lived the most part of her life in
the Ridge area of Accra and that what she has observed over the years
with respect to sanitation is not pleasing at all.
Speaking on TV3’s New Day, the former first lady, who recently launched
her book ‘It takes a Woman’, did not seem enthused about the situation.
She answered in the affirmative when host Johnnie Hughes asked whether the situation breaks her heart.
“I have lived in Ridge since I was like 7 years. I have seen the way it
used to be. I have seen the deterioration and it’s sad”, she said.
The wife of Ghana’s longest-serving head of state cited an example of a clinic she said is close to her office.
She claims the clinic dumps its refuse “across the street” and she is
contemplating writing to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) about it.
The conversation about Ghana’s sanitation was triggered by a chapter in her book which she titles ‘Ghana Rising’.
In the said chapter, she makes an allusion to a time in Ghana’s history
where “our mothers, like other Ghanaians, saw the filth and hated it”
but only hoped someone or something happened to change the situation.
She believes sanitation is a problem in Ghana and that it is not just
enough for the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to talk about
Accra becoming the cleanest city.
She believes it is possible for Accra to attain that feat but that there should be actions accompanying the talk.
She observes that even though there is a minister in-charge of
sanitation, more needs to be done to achieve the dream of Accra becoming
the cleanest city.
“It can be done, but it has to be done with all the forcefulness it
deserves, with education. While we’re educating and there is force from
the ministry and the rest of us, we should let the populace know you
can’t just throw paper where you want,” she said.
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