The Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur, has expressed great confidence in the Mayor of Accra, Dr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije for initiating and implementing strategies that will help curb the cholera outbreak and further develop the capital city, Accra.
His commendation came at the news that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) under the stewardship of the Mayor, Dr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, has designed two landfill sites in Accra for waste disposal and management.
In an exclusive interview with the Vice President at the Flagstaff House in Accra, he expressed satisfaction at the way the Mayor of Accra was able to organize his people to clean the city of Accra at a fast pace, saying that, "the Accra Mayor himself has been able to mobilize his people, after the first round where we cleared some areas, organised an engineered landfill site and able to move the waste to the site."
According to Amissah Arthur, the programmes being rolled out by Dr Vanderpuije are geared towards improving peoples' standard of living and reduce cost on ill-health.
He explained that Ghanaians don't want explanations to what can be done to prevent certain developments but want to see actions and solutions, hence, steps taken by the Mayor to ensure that Accra meets the standard its deserves, must be lauded.
"The government is available to mobilize the capacity to save situations," he said.
He also indicated that, because the capacity of the town council to move around and make sure people comply with sanitation standards in their households seemed to be limited, people are learning bad habits and "...areas which use to be cleaner are no longer clean" due to bad practices.
He said, ‘‘although the population of Accra has grown massively in the past ten years, the capacity of the Accra Metropolitan Authority is winning in the light of the vast number of people that are here which creates and generate more waste within the capital for collection by the AMA.’’
Touching on the Compost toilet system, the Vice President enumerated that the technology has been developed in such a way that, it will prevent the smell and make its usage cheaper.
He called on individuals to erect the facility in their homes, calling on the Metropolitan Authorities to also do same at vantage positions for individuals and corporate organisations to follow.
"To sustain it, people must see the value in good health that will reduce their cost on health care and treatment."