The Brong Ahafo Regional Office of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a sanitation management organisation on Thursday handed over 22 new waste management trucks to the Regional Co-ordinating Council RCC).

The trucks will be distributed to the municipal and district assemblies.

The handing over ceremony held at the forecourt of the RCC in Sunyani was attended by Mr Kwasi Oppong Ababio, Sunyani Municipal Chief Executive and representatives of the 15 municipal and seven district assemblies.

Mr Kofi Sekyere Boateng, Regional Manager of Zoomlion, said it is the policy of the waste management company to ensure effective sanitation in the 22 assemblies.

He appealed to other key stakeholders to collaborate with the company to manage sanitation in the region.

Mr Kwadwo Nyamekye-Marfo, Regional Minister, said inadequacy of equipment is the greatest challenge militating against the smooth and effective waste management operations in the country.

He said government’s inability to readily provide the required equipment was due to its huge financial commitment, adding that “the situation has had an effect on the purity of the general environment and the health of the people”.

Mr Nyamekye Marfo said, to remedy the situation the government in its latest environmental sanitation policy, promulgated the ceding of up to 80 per cent of waste management operations to the private sector and “one of the good fruits that this partnership has borne is what we are all here to witness today – handing over of new waste trucks to Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to boost your logistical capacities for greater efficiencies in refuse collection operations”.

He said 96 refuse containers are expected to be made available for waste collection in all the assemblies in the region and their distribution would be in the form of six containers for each municipal assembly, and four containers to each district assembly.

Mr Nyamekye-Marfo appealed to the beneficiary districts to ensure that the trucks and refuse containers would be used for the intended purposes and take good care of them. **