The campaign to keep the environment clean has failed to achieve its objectives as people keep on living in and sleeping in filth.
A visit to Zongo-Junction, a suburb of Accra, by CONSTITUENCY TODAY revealed that the lives of residents were in danger since the community has been swallowed up by filth. The paper gathered that gutters in the vicinity were choked with plastic wastes and full to capacity.
“These gutters are filled with garbage, which makes it very difficult for water to run through when it rains, thus causing floods,” a resident who gave her name as Mr Lord Quartey noted.
“One could not bear the stench that emanates from these gutters every day, it is just disgusting,” a pedestrian stated.
An opinion leader in the area who gave his name as Nuunmo Borbitey indicated that this situation has more often than not been caused by residents who dump wastes indiscriminately into gutters.
“We are digging our own graves because mosquitoes are always in our rooms due to the drains and stagnant water – at the end you get attacked by malaria and other environmentally related diseases,” Nuunmo Borbitey stated.
He revealed that efforts have been made to stop residents from this practice but to no avail since they were not ready to heed the advice.
Miss Cassandra Mensah, another resident, disclosed that some of the residents had turned the gutters into their landfill sites, dumping refuse that has contributed to the problem. “Some people are ignorant of the fact that cleanliness is next to godliness and as such need to intensify sanitation education as an effort keep our environment clean for development,” said Miss Mensah.
BY BEATRICE DEDE ASIEDU