As part of government’s efforts at tackling sanitation issues in the country, president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has cut the sod for the reconstruction of the Tema sewer network and waste water treatment plant as well as a solid waste treatment facility at Ashaiman all in the Greater Accra Region.
The three facilities is a collaboration between the government of Ghana and the Jospong Group of Companies (JGC) with its private sector partners. It formed part of the government’s efforts at tackling sanitation issues in the country.
The projects will help in the clean Ghana policy of the government as solid waste which has become a big issue for the various assemblies will be tackled through recycling which the plant will be doing.
Waste water will also be recycled and reused for various purposes including agriculture and a host of others.
The President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo speaking before cutting the sod for the historic project to take off commended the Jospong Group Chairman and his partners for supporting the vision of his government.
“It is a great honour to join the good people of Tema to cut the sod for the Commencement of the sewerage project in Tema and solid waste treatment Facility in Ashaiman. Kudos to the Jospong Group and it’s partners for collaborating with my government to ensure my vision to make Ghana the cleanest City in Africa is achieved. It is expected to serve about four hundred indigenous of Tema and It’s environs”.
He also expressed the readiness of his government to collaborate with the private sector businesses.
President Akufo-Addo, speaking during the sod cutting ceremony in Tema on sunday said the reconstruction of the Tema sewer network was part of the government’s policy aimed at tackling sanitation problems with the private sector.
He praised the Jospong Group of Companies for taking the initiative of venturing into the sanitation sector to help government deal with the problem. He said Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a member of JGC, has also been contracted to re-engineer the Kpone landfill and Oti landfill as part of efforts to deal with garbage.
In her address, the Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Mrs Cecilia Abena Dapaah, disclosed that access to sanitation facilities had risen from 14% in 2017 to 21% in 2019.
That, according to her, was a sign of government’s commitment to tackling the sanitation needs of the country.
Appealing to Ghanaians to retain the governing NPP in power, Mrs Dapaah said, “I know our President is a caring President, who is interested in making sure the vulnerable are taken care of. In that regard, I appeal to you to give the President another term to continue with his good works.”
The Executive Chairman of Jospong Group of Companies, Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, on his part, praised the government for the political will to find an African solution to the sanitation problem of the country.
According to him, over 95% of the workforce for the construction of the projects will be Ghanaians. He disclosed that the project will be completed within 18 months, and that everything was ready for work to start.
“Everything is ready for work to begin and within 18 months it will be completed. Some feasibility studies have been done, the project office is ready, equipment and our partners are all ready for the work to proceed,” he said.
The projects—which are being undertaken by the Jospong Group of Companies, will see the reconstruction of the sewerage network in Tema to help tackle the disposal of household waste from the only planned city in West Africa.
It will also see to the construction of two plants at Tema and Ashaiman to treat wastewater and solid waste respectively.
Tema, one of the well-planned cities, is facing serious sewerage management challenges due to increasing population and an obsolete sewerage system constructed when the industrial city was built by the country’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
The overburdened infrastructure in the metropolis, most of which are either out of order or in dilapidated conditions, has lately seen very crude methods of discharging untreated faecal waste directly into streams within the Kpone community, as well as the beaches along the Sakumono, Tema Manhaean and Kpone communities.
Story: Eric Boateng
