Residents of the Oti New Site in the Ashanti regional capital Kumasi are living perilously with the risk of contracting cholera and other sanitation related diseases.
That is because the landfill site which was a distant away from the residencies has now caught up with them spilling over waste into their homes. The situation has become more disturbing as tankers with faecal matter are now depositing their waste in drains that stream through the community into the Oti River which serves other communities.
The residents who have been speaking to GhOne News are threatening to demonstrate and block the roads used by the waste-carting-trucks.
The untreated faecal matter ends up in other communities like Esreso, Adegya, sokoban, odaho, ntenanko, barekese, Bekwai and Anwia Nkwanta where the Oti river travels.
Some of the residents of the hardest hit areas who spoke to GhOne News have complained about the hazards the situation poses to them.
The director of Waste Management with the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly Prosper Kotoka told GhOne News the assembly empathizes with the residents.
He indicated that the assembly has secured a three hundred and fifty thousand dollar grant from an NGO – the Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor – to begin constructing a facility to manage the damping of the faecal matter.
Also, piles of rubbish heaped by the landfill site uncollected also emits a pungent odour worsening the plight of the residents. The communities around the area early last year embarked on a massive demonstration to compel the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, to call the operator of the land fill site – the Stanley Owusu Group – to order.
The Waste Management Director Kotoka indicated that the assembly has in response, constructed three new cells to manage different segregation of waste generated in both the wet and dry seasons.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
