In its quest to rid the city of Kumasi of filth and maintain good sanitation, the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) on Monday 9th June, 2014 launched the sanitation Rapid Response Scheme code name “Orangi” to check littering in the metropolis.
Under the scheme, 150 people have been recruited and put in gangs of five and assigned to various lorry terminals and vantage points in the metropolis to pick the litter especially plastics which people throw around indiscriminately.
Speaking at the formal launch of the scheme, the Mayor of Kumasi, Mr. Kojo Bonsu noted that solid waste collection and disposal challenges confronting metropolitan , municipal and district assemblies in the country made it imperative to device what he called new, effective and efficient ways of handling solid waste.
He said it was for this reason that the Assembly thought it prudent to come up with the sanitation Rapid Response Scheme to address sanitation problems in the metropolis.
The KMA boss said the scheme was purposefully designed to complement other existing schemes all geared towards making Kumasi satisfactorily clean.
According to him, two tracks, 150 picking sticks, 150 uniforms and 200 collection sacks had been acquired to ensure the smooth take-off and operation of the scheme.
Mayor Bonsu urged the sanitation workers to take good care of the equipment and also give the needed attention to the task at hand to keep the city clean.
He said the scheme would not make a difference if the public do not complement the efforts of the sanitation works by changing their indiscriminate littering habits by properly disposing of refuse.
Mayor Bonsu spoke of the full cost recovery scheme and the night sweeping scheme as other means of addressing waste management in the metropolis.
He said the full cost recovery scheme based on incremental cost recovery and declining subsidy was started in 2008.
He said the scheme had now matured into full scale implementation since January 2014 and the Assembly was no longer going to pay any subsidy to the private waste collection contractors for services they render to domestic and commercial properties.
After the launch, there was a float through some streets of the city to raise public awareness of the operations of the “Orangi” sanitation workers.
Earlier on in the day, Mayor Bonsu accompanied by some KMA heads of department visited the landfill site at Dompoase near Kumasi.
It was observed during the visit that sanitation workers were busily spraying the site to minimise and control flies and the stench emanating from the refuse.
It was further observed that bulldozers were busily levelling the place to allow for easy offloading by refuse trucks.