Who is responsible for the looming filth crises in Accra?
May 12, 2008
Suggestion for Pull-Quote
There is a crisis looming over Accra, the capital city of 51-year-old Ghana, the ‘Gateway into Africa’. A city of the profile of Accra has no sanitary landfill. What we have are traditional rubbish dumping sites. They are like ‘kakai’ (scary). Shameful!
The Looming Bola Crisis in Accra
We have experienced power outages – on-off; off-off-on; off-on-off-on-off-off! Some of us go for weeks, even months without a drop of water flowing through our pipes. We even forget what it is like to have ‘pipe’ water and become content with well water, ‘Kufuor gallons’ or ‘delivery-truck’ water. Worst of all, we have been asked trick-questions like: “What’s your preference – to be without water or electricity?” to which we find ourselves too unintelligent to give an informed answer because we are too dazed to make that bizarre choice.
For some, those ‘tragedies’ pale in comparison with Accra floods especially if caught in storm run-off that push water with varied levels of pollutants into places they do not belong. OK, so we are currently weathering Accra storms, again! But I want to dare say that you ain’t seen nothing yet in Accra, that is, unless some proactive measures are taken – urgently!
There is a disturbing situation that is rarely talked about. It is the status of Accra ‘bola’. This is probably because solid waste, rubbish, trash – better known as ‘bola’ – is a nasty word. Once you throw your household rubbish away, you never pause to wonder what happens to it. It belongs to the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ category of matters. Bola stinks. Bola looks nasty. Bola is like vomit; it comes out of your mouth and you don’t want to see or ever have anything to do with it again.
Fact: Only a dead person does not create waste; well, the corpse is the last waste every person generates, akin to the last show of a ‘blow-man’. Being alive therefore implies that we constantly create waste – everyday of our lives. The food we eat and easing ourselves (pee and poo) – are all definite opportunities to generate liquid and solid waste.
Where does yours end up? When was the last time you paid for your ‘bola’ to be collected? Do you ever factor in ‘bola’ bills as important life expenditure? It appears that paying for ‘bola’ has not fully made it into our expenditure psyche. Why should you gleefully spend money on food but unwilling to consider paying for the waste – its inevitable outcome? Who should be responsible for picking after you?
There is a crisis looming over Accra, the capital city of 51-year-old Ghana, the ‘Gateway into Africa’. A city of the profile of Accra has no sanitary landfill. What we have are traditional refuse dumping sites. They are like ‘kakai (scary)’. Shameful!
Currently, we have Oblogo ‘bola’, abandoned stone quarry sites, which are about full. On the way to Oblogo on the Weija road, you can’t miss to notice that you’re approaching a mighty ‘bola’ because of the unsightly droppings from ‘bola’ trucks.
Accra also has a monstrous sorry pathetic mountainous ‘bola’ dump at Teshie-Nungua Estates, in a neighbourhood where real people live. It started off with good intentions as a composting plant to produce fertilizer for farming. But in no time, with the usual neglect and irresponsible management, some machines broke down and ‘bola’ dumping overwhelmed the technology. The plant has been allowed to turn into a sanitation hell and a health disaster waiting to happen.
Leachate (fluids from the ‘bola’) seep into people’s homes and on the wings of the wind, unhealthy breezy stench blows in the direction of homes. From the books, there are no plans to restore the composting plant. The health hazard remains. The stinky matter rests!
Then, there are several other odd locations for ‘by-heart’ rubbish dumping all over our capital city. Apart from being eye sores, such refuse dumping sites help to entrench a ‘bola’ mentality of indiscriminate dumping of refuse into our psyche.
To bring the state of Accra ‘bola’ to your consciousness, the next time you see a ‘bola’ truck, pause to wonder: Where is its final destination? The answer will shock you. If your preference is to stay peacefully in denial, then never mind! Don’t even read on. Simply wait around until the unavoidable ‘bola’ disaster occurs!
Accra has several things to learn from Tamale. One of them is that Tamale has a well-maintained engineered landfill. An engineered landfill is high on maintaining sanitary environmental standards. It’s safe, well-organized with drainage systems to collect and channel leachate. A key difference between a well- and poorly-managed landfill is that the waste on a best-practice landfill is first compressed then regularly covered with material like soil to control or eliminate flies, stench, flying refuse and leachate.
Undoubtedly, Tamale and Kumasi have the only state-of-the-art landfills in the entire country. On the contrary, Accra has the ‘bola’ of old, the abandoned quarry. When it fills up, other pits are identified and filled up too. The frightening fact is that one of these days, sooner probably more than later, there would be no more of such excavations to use as ‘bola’ dumping pits. There is every indication that that day is not far off.
Once upon a time, the government identified and invested money into a landfill site at Kwabenya. A sturdy road was constructed in consideration of the anticipated heavy trucks that would carte the city’s multitude ‘bola.’ But as it happens in several departments of our national life, the government went to sleep after opening up the area. So since nature abhors vacuum, lands around the site were sold, people moved in, built houses and made the neighbourhood home. Before long, a “Not-in-my-backyard” tug-of-war between the residents and the ‘authorities’ began and has raged on till today while the project remains in funny perpetual limbo.
Meanwhile, Accra’s ‘bola’ piles up – scattered; a city’s buffoonery heightens. The matter rests! If Accra does not snap out of this folly and take concrete steps to learn lessons from Tamale by quickly figuring out where to properly dump its high volume of toxic ‘bola’, then any of the following (or worse) scenarios might unfold:
1. Our ‘bola’ will soon pile up to the nonsense degree. Imagine going for 2-4 weeks without having your household bola collected. Maggots will grow; your house will stink. You would have to dig a trench behind your home (if you are privileged enough to have a backyard). With that, you will be guaranteed frequent visits from a large family of well-fed rats of varied sizes. You think mosquitoes are a problem? Wait until you have to fight with rodents!
2. Indiscriminate dumping of refuse will increase and the current eye-sore will be many times what it is today. Accra will officially become Ghana’s capital city of bola!
3. The stench will be unbearable. While the politicians are busy lusting for power, the media will cry foul about the sudden ‘bola’ crisis. Opposition parties will jump on the NPP administration and play a big-time blame game. With that, the focus of the electioneering campaigns will quickly change and usher us into a period of promises galore, promises politicians never intend to fulfil.
I challenge my family of colleagues in the mass media to investigate this stinky matter in earnest. It probably has more immediate relevance to our lives and health than the political stories of ‘Hotel Kufuor’, ‘Allan Kyeremateng quits NPP’ and/or ‘Prof Mills too sick to be President’. Watch!
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
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20 Responses to “Who is responsible for the looming filth crises in Accra?”
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we to be blame if there is anything like who to blame. we have allowed politicians to take us for a ride for far too long and we sit waiting for someone to do something. can the authorizes sit and think about what they want to do.
yes because they know we will say nothing
journalist’s who are always writing about personalities and not about issues.
God help us
Kojo,
sorry I have to be very blunt and a bit unsavoury this morning. Why is it that when George Bush and wife visited Nima recently, all goats and other livestocks were commandeered into a kind of house arrest? Was it because they were mere inconveniences or sore sights? Where were the heaps of rubbish then? Just you check out the heap literally opposite the Nima Early Childhood Centre, close to the Barclays Bank; the least said about how it has spilled over onto the road, and the stench… Guess the health harzard to the kids, if for nothing at all. An even worse scenario is the case of the heap right at the traffic lights at the Darkuman Junction end of Abeka Lapaz, dumped there for a few days now by a broken down Chagnon waste dump truck which has skidded off onto the median of the road (it looks even worse than than the heap of rubbish). The big question I have for not just tha authorities but every single Ghanaian is simple: don’t we deserve to live in clean environments, and for how long are we going to pretend to keep our environment clean just to cosmetically please visitors? Are we that inferiorly complex? And do we by this very behaviour expect to command the respect of other people?
AND FOR THE CITY AUTHORITIES AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP: I DON’T CARE WHO IS DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THESE, BUT THE POINT IS SIMPLE, IF YOU (CITY AUTHORITIES AND THE GOVERNEMENT) ARE READY TO TAKE THE CREDIT WHEN THE GOING IS SMOOTH, THEN BE PREPARED TO TAKE THE BACKLASH WHEN IT COMES. YOU CANNOT TAKE THE HEALTH OF THE GHANAIAN TAXPAYER FOR GRANTED. If you can’t do the job, QUIT, NO MORE ROOM FOR EXCUSES.
Thank you, Kojo, I’m really smarting with pent up anger and disappointments this morning.
KWAMENA,
WISE (WOMEN’S INITIATIVE FOR SELF EMPOWERMENT)
Hi Kojo, I think we are all responsible. but the city authorities should provide dust collection bins at vantage points and residential areas so as to prevent residents from discriminately disposing off their waste. With all hands on deck, this problem can be solved. Keep up the good works.
Kojo, I pay GHc8.00 per month for the collection of waste from my house. For a week now, the waste has not been collected. Meanwhile the waste mgt company is supposed to collect the waste twice a week.
So, I say the filt is caused by the lack of policy directive, political will, ignorance on the part of the citizenry and commitment on the part of waste mgt companies.
i think we have to blame the authorities in charge and ourselves.the solution to end all this is to educate all as we did on the cedi redenomination.
Kojo, i want to know the where about of elloy amande, the sports presenter.
Our politicians and municipal authorities are taking us for a ride. The earlier a restriction is placed on the sale of sachet water the better. since people are not in a position to change their habits, they must be made to suffer the consequences of their action.
rightly put Kojo, Ghanaians are too into sensationalism while the ‘basiest’ of issues which really affect our livelihood are relegated to some unseen corner.
this ‘BOLA’ menace didn’t start today but no real plans have been put in place to handle it, it’s like one big joke! if ever some one thinks to mention it, the authorities quickly come up with some skin deep plans of containment and sweep the issue under the carpets and since Ghanaians are rather into the big name stories than issues of real concern, it is all too soon forgotten.
personally i blame the authorities for how far the problem has gone, yes the people’s bad habits are contributory factors but we have to bear in mind that one cannot establish a society and forget to institute certain areas but expect everything will be alright…….if we were still living in our little communes, well you could safely blame the people but if living in larger society has been institutionalized, someone should not neglect the responsibility of institutionalizing the ‘BOLA’ collection and disposal as well!
it amazes me when we always want to put all the blame on A.M.A and government.i do understant we pay taxes and other levies for such duties to be carried out, but as much as we leave in a society we should also make conscious efforts to look out for each other (what happened to the community labour and clean up activities we use to have).The typical ghanaian i know is one who can talk and knows about almost all that is to be done, but well fail to get it done, just because he expects some one else to do it.to me this is an attitudinal problem and not until we decide to change we shall always be at a standstill or be retrogressing.Aside the individual keeping his or her community clean, the government and a.m.a also has an enormous task of ensuring that there are adequate systems in place to cater for such environmental issues.
The society (assembly persons and mp’s, representing the society), government and a.m.a needs to put their heads together and find a lasting solution to this chronic issue.the government can not do it alone neither can the a.m.a, so lets join hands and make the gate way to africa a clean and a better transit point rather than a mockery to the international world.
GOD HELPS US.
Kojo! It is a sad time. Waste idealy should be dispose with the speed of light. But in Accra people sleep with it. others sit by it to sell.
Kojo am one month old now in Madina-libya quarters but i tell u am disgusted how dirty and firlty the waste situations is. Just by my house there this gutter from Zongo juction which residents damp both solid and liguid waste into. Sent is terrible but the threat of flood in the area cannot be overemphasized. It is a blame game others say it the AMA some say blame the residents or both. But the problem is as old as Accra.
If my Village Gooziir in the Upper West Region, is so clean that i hardly see refuse damps why cant Accra my capital be cleaner?
I do accept the finacial challenge in managing waste in the city, but proper planning is lacking. So just as we asking the city authorities to be up and doing we as citizens should play our part.
I must commend Joy FM for dedicating your Super mornig show to waste management. keep the good work.
Actuary is the key to Ghana problem solving.
Let’s stop depending on government for everything. This trash issue is just common management issue. Tell the people what to do? Or form Home owner Association and apply this plan to collect money for this project. People are renting houses and collecting huge advances and rents. But they are refusing to create humane environment for their tenets.
Why don’t you try this plan to raise some money? This will work for only big towns and not village.
To raise 30,000,000 cedis to sponsor the trash collections (example).
This is the maths.
30million cedis/50,000(households in accra just a figure)=600 cedis
Ghana government takes 70% of the 600 cedis= 420 cedis and
Each household pays 30% of the 600 cedis = 180 cedis per a year
Single families will pay 180 cedis and compound rented house will pay from 180 to 300 cedis per a year. This can also be broken down to help people afford this money. By paying installment 180/12=15 cedis a month. This will alleviate this problem. We can use the money to hire more workers and maintain the trucks that collect this trash.
We also needs to train kids not to throw this trash around.
This politician should be leave out of this, scenario because they are afraid to lose election and therefore will not take any action.
But my question is should I allow myself to pick up pulmonary cancer, asthma or strep throat from inhaling all this stink, bacteria and parasites. Because someone is refusing to do his work. I need to take control of my own life by doing what i can control, because if I am sick I have to pay for it. since we are paying rents let hold home owners accountable for not doing the right thing and they will hold AMA accountable.
Hi Kojo,
the issue about filth in the country is vey alarming. Once we are concentrating much more on the capital city, can`t the AMA do the magic they did when President Bush was in town.
Much emphasis should be given to the situation the the new Kasoa market. I think over there is also getting out hand.
Let us all be positive minded as we try to solve this critical issue and leave all those political parties to make allthe noise they can. Have a good morning, Manchester United all the way.
i ve to speak my mind once again. some people talk of communal labor and stuff like that to keep environments clear of filth. good. but what if you gather all the refuse in your locality and cant find a dumping site. i repeat the government must be blamed afterall no one wants filth in or around their homes.
if the government does its part then we can turn to the individuals.
kojo it will suprise you that some members in authority in Ghana have been responsible for these looming filth in my eyes.
If I am to spill out names on this issue, many Ghanaians will as well be dumped into a big shock.
But all the same they rendered an apology and promised it wouldn’t happen again.
Hi Kojo,
I’m glad you and your team decided to take up the issue of poor waste management, not only in the capital, but all over Ghana. The situation is quite alarming, we live in so much filth, it’s amazing!!!
Who is to blame? Everyone of us is to blame but most especially our authorities who are paid good money to take care of these problems. Action should be taken now. It is about time people were made responsible for their actions and inactions. Let us solve the problem now before it gets too late(if it is not already)
I hope you continue hammering on this issue until something posistive is done about it. It is at times like this that I am ashamed to be a ghanaian.
Ghaanaians way of refuse disposal has been attitudinal ,
Ghanaians need someone who is half- mad to deal with this filth that has engulfed our cities. if ghanaians will not behave like human-being and will throw refuse anywhere, this half human wil also treat them anyhow.
let us remember Salifu Amankwa……. at Nkrumah circle
Please tell mr Asamoah Boateng that I am not happy about the way he is handling the very important post of an information minister, in fact i think he makes a poor information minister i suggest he tries defense. Because some of his utterances does not helps issues the earlier he reconsiders his current post the better for this government .
So the garbage situation in our capital city when is it going to be resolved ? can anyone tell me ? How on earth can we put people in positions of trust they sit down unconcern for such a calamity to engulf an entire City .In recent time one cannot go to town without being hit directly in the face by hip of garbages ,here , there ,everywhere and its associated unbearable stench. Please mr mayor i don’t hear from you of late . where are you? how can you convincingly explain the garbage situation in Accra? the ball is in your court mr mayor.
The CJA played a crucial role in getting Dr Amoako Tuffuor out of the school feeding program. I am looking forward to seeing them step in to put pressure on the powers that be to fix the “boola” situation.
Kojo. I must say that in as much as it is the duty of the Government or in other words the city authorities to see to it that our cities are clean more rest on us the citizenery. It very disgusting to see un educated or a rational human being spitting and throwing rubish here and there when he or she can keep whatever it it and dispose it off at a designated place. We as a people need to be given orientation right from the youngers babe to the prisident. We always cherish the beauty of other countries. They were not made beautiful by God or the government as we see them today. People living in those countries know what to do. I’ve not travelled to any country but what those who have travlled will tell you is that: you can’t just wake up and be spitting urinating, dificating and throwing rubish everywhere. Now that the Zoom Lion or Zoom tiger has been established. majority of Ghanaians have made up their minds that since they are being paid, it is their duty to keep the cities clean always. Therefore they are at liberty to litter everywhere. It is said cleanliness is very next to Godliness. We can’t dress up in neat cloths, ride in most expensive cars and live in luxerious home while we engulf or surroundings with filth. Let us learn to keep our surounding clean. By so doing there will even not be the need to establish Zoom Lion or Tiger. Monies being used for that would have served a different purpose.