The National Development Planning Commission(NDPC) is asking policy makers to place a ban on importation and use of plastic carrier bags and containers in the country.
According to the Commission, the move is the only way the country can make any headway in addressing the sanitation challenges.
Speaking to Starr News on the sidelines of the Ministry for Sanitation and Water Resources and World Vision 2nd executive breakfast conversation on WASH, Director General for the NDPC, Dr. Kojo Esseim Mensah-Abrampa argued countries such as Rwanda and Tanzania have seen marked improvements in sanitation after banning use of plastics and thus Ghana must follow suit.
“If you go to Rwanda for instance, there’s an embargo on the use of plastics and the disposal of it so they don’t have a problem with it. If you go to Kigali, it is a small city but very beautiful. They’ve just done it in Tanzania and you could see the change in Dar es Salaam in the cities. So this is something that must go to the attention of decision makers to reconsider that.
“I have been saying this everywhere I go and I don’t mince words that if we can have a way to enhance and place this embargo, it would change the morphology of our cities and make them more attractive and bring us the resources we expect in terms of tourism and others. If you go to Kigali, there’s nothing spectacular apart from the city itself and the terrain and we even have more because we have the beaches and all that. So I think that there’s a high benefit if we can look at that again and I’m a key advocate of that.”
