Residents of Agbogbloshie in the Greater Accra over the weekend commended Zoon Alliance and government for initiating a one month intensive clean-up exercise to keep the community clean.

Some of the residents said for the past weeks, there has been an intensive clean up exercise by the Zoom Alliance officers in the area and this has improved the sanitation situation in the area, especially with the desilting of the gutters.

The residents made the commendation during a tour by officials of Zoom Alliance to the Agbogbloshie market, Odorkor market and Musuko dumping site at Kwabenya to find out the progress of work on the exercise.

Mrs Elizabeth Ablatudeka, owner of a Food Joint at Agbogbloshie, said the poor state of sanitation in the area had brought a lot of flies to the area and was affecting her business, but the exercise has improved the situation.

Mrs Ablatudeka, another market woman with her business designated in the area said the exercise has improved her sales and urged all to practice good sanitation. They however called for stiffer punishment to people who throw rubbish indiscriminately about to serve as a deterrent to potential offenders.

Mr Kenneth Asare, Technical and Operations Manager of Zoom Alliance said her outfit, in partnership with government on September 7, launched a project dubbed “One Month Intensive Clean-up Exercise in Accra”.

The regional exercise, which covered Accra Metropolitan Assembly and some of the Municipal and District Assemblies focuses on selected areas and market places used as refuse collection and communities with heaps of refuse and choked drains.

Mr Asare said the exercise aims at reclaiming refuse landfills by filling it with laterite and leveling, identifying drains for dredging, as well as the cleaning-up and maintenance of security, to deter people from indiscriminate dumping of refuse after the exercise.

He said the Odorkor refuse site has been cleared and filled with laterite, and hoped that by the end of the exercise all the selected areas earmarked for the collection of the heaps of refuse would be cleared.

He said so far, about 28,000 tons of refuse have been collected, and that by the end of the exercise, 50,000 tons of refuse would have been collected.

Mr Asare said work on the Musuko refuse site started on September 17, and that heaps of refuse, which engulfed the community, would be cleared by September 26, to pave way for an impending school project.