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| Construct Landfill Now Or Lose $10m — World Bank |
1/15/2007 |
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The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) may lose a-$10 million World Bank grant for the construction of the Kwabenya Landfill Project if it does not take immediate steps to utilise the funds.
The money, equivalent to about ¢92 billion, was allocated to the assembly in 2004 and has since been lying dormant in the accounts of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment in the name of the AMA.
Consequently, the World Bank has threatened to take back the funding if the AMA does not utilise it for the project by next month.
The Project Co-ordinator for the second phase of the Urban Environmental and Sanitation Project (UESP), Mr Daniel Ohene Aidoo, attributed the delay in utilising the fund to teething problems related to the construction of the landfill at Kwabenya.
He said the AMA could not afford to let go of such a huge amount, stressing that “ if this money is withdrawn, it will be a disaster to the AMA and the government, AMA is actually sitting on a public health time bomb”, he said.
The need for an engineered landfill site for Accra was identified in 1991 and the Kwabenya site selected in 1993. Feasibility studies were carried out in 1997 and Messrs Taywood Engineering designed the landfill in the same year with funding from DFID and the Accra Waste Project (AWP).
Under the AWP certain basic aspects of the design referred to as enabling works was carried out between 2000 and 2001 at a cost of £3 million.
A school and access roads were constructed for the community to improve on infrastructural facilities for the people for the siting of the landfill project in the area. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) had already been carried out.
What brought about the abrupt end of the project in August 2001, was when news went round that several buildings would be demolished to facilitate the completion of the project, while the residents also resolved not to allow a landfill project in their backyard.
For close to 15 years now, the project had been on hold while the assembly struggled to look for an alternative dumping site.
Ghana is 50 years and its capital cannot even boast of an engineered landfill site. Mr Aidoo said some of the residents had formed a group known as Agyemankata and launched attacks on virtually everyone and anyone who attempted to even visit the project site.
Among the various people that have suffered this fate include the Mayor of Accra, Mr Stanley Nii Adjiri-Blankson whose vehicle was nearly vandalised when he visited the site, the Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama who was also allegedly booed by some organised school- children.
Over the years, the Kwabenya landfill project assumed such complications that the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment decided to take the matter up with the hope of resolving the impasse between the AMA and Agyemankata group since it has a supervisory role over the assemblies, but that had not yielded any result.
Residents of Agyemankata, the community near the Kwabenya Landfill Project site, have staged series of demonstrations to oppose the location of a landfill in the area.
Credible reports indicate that by March this year, there is no way that the AMA can continue dumping garbage at the Oblogo dumping site and a search for an alternative site at Weija, although has been fruitful, can last for only two years. “ The Weija site is temporary”, an official of the assembly said.
It is not likely that we can even start dumping garbage at the Weija site since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has not completed the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report.
“The AMA is now in a fix, aware of the impending difficulties ahead, but with very little time to act”. Mr Aidoo appealed to the EPA to hasten the EIA report so that the assembly could go ahead with the construction of the Weija site.
According to him, if this does not happen, solid waste management in the metropolis in the next two months would be extremely difficult as there would be no place to dump garbage and this may have a disastrous effect on the sanitation situation in the city.
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