Residents, 'station boys' and market women in their hundreds Saturday morning defied the intermittent rains to join the National Democratic Congress (NDC) clean Navrongo township and markets.

With brooms, spades, rakes and wheelbarrows, residents particularly ‘station boys and traders joined the party under the leadership of its Parliamentary candidate, Sampson Tangombu Chiragia and party executives to rid the town off filth.

The traders, who were obviously setting up for a brisk business day, joined efforts with members of the umbrella fraternity to clean and sweep the main lorry station, markets and desilted gutters along major streets in the town amidst loud music.

The crowd followed the team throughout the exercise and not even the rains falling intermittently stopped their continuous outpour on the streets,

The constituency secretary of the party, Selanwiah S. Abdul-Mumin (PhD), speaking to GhanaWeb shortly after the exercise marveled at the people’s show of commitment in improving their sanitation challenges.

The party scribe said the exercise was undertaken to improve sanitary conditions at the markets and reduce the incidence of flooding in some locations this rainy season.

He further said the clean-up exercise was also a way of minimizing the incidence of rain related diseases and the impact of the COVID- 19 for a healthier community.

Mr. Selanwiah said: “the exercise is to keep our environments cleans. You know we are in the rainy season and all our gutters are chocked with filth. So, we think that as a responsible political party, there is the need to desilt the choked gutters so that water can flow freely to reduce the incidence of floods and common diseases like Cholera, Malaria and even COVID-19. The COVID-19 is still with us and one of the protocols is a clean environment”.

The party scribe thanked the people for supporting the clean-up initiative, assuring the party would organize the exercise monthly as its intervention to ensure the Navrongo township and communities are clean. He urged the people to remain committed to activities that target the improve of their environment.

“We used to have a day for cleaning the environment but when this incompetent government came, they scrapped it and they don’t do it anymore. But every month we’ll still continue with this activity as a political party and we believe that the well-meaning people of Navrongo will continue to join us to keep the environment clean”.

Mr. Selanwiah said the outpour of the people in support of the exercise indicated the seriousness people have attached to issues of sanitation. He expressed hope the turnout would translate into votes to enable the NDC recapture power to improve sanitary conditions in the country.