The Member of Parliament (MP) for Odododiodio Constituency, Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye, says Accra, the capital of the country, is dirty beyond imagination.

According to him, most places in the capital, if not all, are bushy, blaming the authorities of shirking their responsibility of tidying up the environment.

“Ordinary grass cutting, this government cannot do it… The Akan will say ‘Nkran nyinaa ay3 fi potoo’,” to wit, Accra is dirty, a claim the Minister for Sanitation, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, has refuted.

The claim and subsequent accusation, as well as the denial by the MP for Odododiodio and the Sanitation Minister respectively, ensued on the floor of Parliament yesterday.

The House was still debating the financial policy of the government for the year ending December 2020.

Yesterday saw the turn of Sanitation. Debating the policy, the MP, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, said the government could not even make sure the city is clean.

His comments come years after the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in his inaugural speech pledged to make Accra the cleanest city in West Africa.

“… If you go through Accra today, it is horrible to see. Sweeping is even difficult for the Assembly to take, not to talk of weeding. This morning, driving from Old Barrier to McCarthy Hill, I wondered if I was walking through the forest, so bushy…,” he bemoaned.

Referring to a tour of the country by some committees in Parliament, the MP said the filth was not only in Accra.

He cited various landfill sites and criticised the government’s handling of them, suggesting modern ways it could use to ensure maximum positive results.

“Landfill sites in modern Ghana. In the next five years who is going to give you his land to come and pour rubbish there?” he quizzed.

In a swift rebuttal, the outspoken Minister for Sanitation expressed shock at the claim. She, however, urged that in making submissions as part of what she described as a beautiful debate, the members should show patriotism and give the true and correct picture.

She said: “I am, in fact, flabbergasted. Totally shocked as I listen to the Hon Member making such an effusion of negativity, vis-a-vis the beautiful cities we have in Ghana.

“We all need to be patriotic to give the true and correct picture as we go on with this beautiful debate. Mr Speaker, I want to place on record the Hon Member is exaggerating…

“He is talking about landfill sites. I want to place it on record that the landfill sites needed engineering in the past eight years, it wasn’t done.

“It has taken this hard-working government to make sure we provide healthy surroundings for the good people of Ghana,” she added.