From Adenta through East Legon, Adjiriganor to Dansoman, residents have, for the past three weeks, had to live with piles of offensive smelling garbage following the failure of waste collection companies to empty refuse bins.
In particular, residents in and around the Accra Metropolis and the Adenta municipality have complained that they have been struggling to dispose of the waste that they generate from their homes. According to them, their refuse containers are never picked each time they placed them out of doors.
Apparently, the new waste management companies assigned the responsibility to collect waste have never done so since the re-zoning by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the other municipalities which broke Zoomlion's monopoly.
A visit to most vicinities revealed refuse bins overflowing with waste placed before households.
Perhaps, they do not have the required equipment to work with. Moreover, they have been instructed to provide households with refuse bins as they begin their collection activities. Waste management experts say this is capital intensive.
Indeed, the companies seem to have now dispatched workers to go around registering households at a fee. A staff member of Public Agenda confirmed that a lady entered their house at Lapaz insisting to register every room at a fee of GHC1.00. she is equally alleged to have said that each room would pay GHC3.00 every month for the weekly collection of their refuse.
The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and Adenta Municipal Assembly recently introduced a fee-based solid waste collection system under which various Waste Management Companies have been assigned areas in which they can operate.
The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has publicly announced through the media its New
solid Waste Collection System, stating that the A.M.A will from 1st June 2010 begin its Fee Performance Based Solid Waste Collection Programme.
Under the new programme, residents have been directed to identify and register with accredited waste contractors for their sub-metro and pay for the collection of the refuse they generate.
It is not clear when the Adenta municipality will come out with a list of accredited waste contractors and when they will do so after about a month of re-zoning. Also, most residents Public Agenda spoke with complained they are not certain when and how their waste bins will be emptied as they have no contact information of the said accredited waste contractors, except those of the A.M.A.
Some of them said they are left with no other choice than to transfer the waste in their containers into plastic bags and look for vehicles and damping sites to dispose them off. One of such residents had to transport her waste to Lapaz for disposal last week.This has led them to question the competence of the newly assigned waste companies to collect waste.
According to them, before the new directive Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a private waste management company, executed its responsibility efficiently. Meanwhile, Zoomlion Ghana Limited has pledged that it will continue with its vision to champion the cause of clean and environmentally healthy communities in Ghana and throughout Africa by the year 2013.
At a media briefing in Accra on Thursday, the Communications Manager of Zoomlion, Mrs. Isabella Gyau-Orhin, announced that Zoomlion has been assigned three out of the 11 sub-metros under the A.M.A.
They are namely, Ayawaso West, Ayawaso Central and Ablekuma Central. It has also been assigned zones four and six in the Adenta Municipal Assembly. She assured both existing and new clients of very timely, reliable and proficient waste collection services."Zoomlion remains committed to providing quality waste management and environmental sanitation services and making your home, community and the entire nation clean and healthy at very affordable rates".
Mrs. Gyau-Orhin said the company is very comfortable with the new arrangement since it will help waste management companies to work effectively and efficiently in areas allocated to them.She also said it will save cost as companies will not need to move from one area to another but have the chance to expend all resources to ensure that the areas they are assigned are very tidy.However, she apologized to loyal clients living outside Zoomlion's assigned areas of operation for its inability to continue serving them as a result of the new arrangement.
She announced that Zoomlion is introducing the three-wheeled mini refuse truck (the "bola taxi") to augment the work of the tricycles. She said these are locally assembled and equipped with vertical, inline, forced water cooling system and operate on 4-stroke engines and have automatic transmission. Further, she said the bola taxis consume less fuel while operation and maintenance are easy and affordable.
She said the greatest challenge facing the company is the lack of land in the major cities especially in Accra which can serve as final disposal sites coupled with the poor sanitary habits of the general public that make their work very difficult.Internationally, she said the company's contract in Angola has been extended after a good performance during the African Nations Cup in Angola 2010 and that Zoomlion continues to receive invitation from so many other countries to work.
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