General News of Monday, 3 June 2019

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

I'll make plastic waste 'too expensive to throw away' when I become President - Hassan Ayariga

Hassan Ayariga, ACP founder play videoHassan Ayariga, ACP founder

Founder of the All People’s Congress Party, Hassan Ayariga, has said that sanitation issues will be a thing of the past when he becomes president of Ghana.

He pledged institute measures which will discourage people from throwing away their disposable materials after use, a phenomenon which causes floods in many parts of the country whenever the rainy season sets in.

Hassan Ayariga stated that citizens are partly to be blamed for the choked gutters and dirty surroundings due to the improper disposing of plastic waste.

“To be very honest, we as citizens were the main problem because if you look around you will see that most people drink (from) water bottles and throw them away. And all these things gets choked when it accumulates for a very long time.” He noted.

He was addressing the media during former President John Mahama's visit to flood-prone areas and victims.

Ayariga thus promised an amount of money to anyone who returned used bottles when he or John Mahama become president. According to him, this solution will go a long way in curbing the menace.

The politician who was a flood victim after the recent rains in Accra stated, “So going forward in 2020 when he (John Mahama) becomes president or I become president what we will do is to put a fine on the bottles. That every bottles have a percentage of value- that you will pay 50 pesewas for the water and 50 pesewas for the bottle. So that after you finish drinking the water you don’t throw the bottle away because the bottle now becomes money so you return it and get money.”



On whether to maintain the use of rubber bags or alternate paper bags he indicated that, “The second one is to make sure we go into using paper bags rather that rubber bags because the rubber bags gets carried away by winds and then it get choked. The paper bags is very easy to accumulate and even burn it.”

Going forward, he urged that Ghanaians become responsible citizens and make sure to clean their environment and know how to dispose off garbage so when the rainy season comes there will be no cause for alarm.