The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) on Wednesday emerged as the grand winner in the Sanitation Challenge for Ghana with a cash prize award of £400,000.00.

Others such as Nanumba North Municipal Assembly took home £280,000.00; Afutu Municipal Assembly with £250,000.00, Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly and Kwahu East District Assembly had £150,000.00 each.

Private partners to the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) such as TriMark Aquaculture Centre took the first prize in the Special Category with a cash prize of $100,000.00; Clean Team Ghana Limited was awarded $60,000.00; and Nanumba North Youth Parliament had $45,000.00

A cash prize of £25,000.00 each was also awarded to Savelugu Municipal Assembly, Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly and Kassena Nankana Municipal Assembly.

Afram Plains Development Organisation, Training Research and Networking for Development, and Live Right Ghana were awarded $10,000.00 each in the private sector special awards category.

Other MMDAs and Private Partners, who participated in the competition, were given honorary awards and citations for their contributions and efforts towards liquid waste management in their respective localities.

The stage two award, had ran for the past three years from June 2016 to July 2019.

It was on the theme, “Grand Dignified City Awards” to reward excellence in liquid waste management and was contested by 15 MMDAs and Private Partners.

It was under the Sanitation Challenge for Ghana which was launched on November 19, 2015 the World Toilet Day.

Madam Cecilia Dapaah, Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, said that the competition was in two stages with the design of liquid waste strategies constituting the first stage and the implementation of these strategies being the second stage.

She said that at the end of stage two processes, 15 assemblies submitted their implementation report to determine the deserving winners.

“You will agree with me that the achievement of the clean Ghana agenda requires a rigorous multi-faceted approach which employs innovative approaches and initiatives," she said.

Madam Dapaah said the Sanitation Challenge Programme was to motivate and trigger competition among the MMDAs to develop innovative sanitation initiatives.

She further explained that the challenge was to bring transformational challenges to city-wide sanitation service delivery by inducing the private sector to partner with Municipal Assemblies to improve waste Management in selected localities across the Country.

She also entreated the awardees to invest the award package especially the cash component wholly to improve sanitation in their respective Assemblies.