The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has decried the huge sums of money it spends daily on waste management, citing deficits in the cost of running the landfill site.

According to officials, the high cost of operating the landfill site does not match the revenue collected from waste management activities.

Speaking during an interview on Kumasi-based radio station Luv FM, the Head of Waste Management at the KMA, Prosper Kotoka, revealed that the city manages approximately 2,000 tonnes of refuse daily at a cost of between GHS 300,000 and GHS 320,000.

He noted that an amount of GHS 83 is required per tonne for waste management in the city.

“The GHS 83 per tonne is not the total cost of managing the waste. After collecting and transporting the waste to the landfill, that is the landfill cost alone,” Mr Kotoka explained.

He highlighted the intensive operations involved at the landfill site, including the deployment of two bulldozers, an excavator, a payloader, and a shift push constructor, all of which are fuelled daily.

These machines are responsible for compacting waste, transporting laterite to cover compacted refuse, and creating access roads for subsequent operations.

He continued that some of the measures taken by his outfit include odour control and the management of flies and rodents at the site. He emphasised that all these operations cost about GHS 150 to GHS 160 per tonne.

“On average, KMA spends GHS 150 to GHS 160 per tonne per day just on operations and maintenance, excluding capital costs such as cell construction,” he stated.

How KMA funds waste management

Among the ways KMA funds waste management, Mr Kotoka indicated that this is done through the collection of fees, property rates, and licences. He added that KMA is responsible for 50 per cent of the waste delivered to the site, while the remaining 50 per cent falls under the jurisdiction of another assembly.

Speaking on some of the challenges currently blocking effective sanitation, Mr Kotoka blamed public attitude.

“I would attribute it to attitudinal problems. We have done a lot of education and sensitisation,” he noted.

To address this, he announced the planned deployment of a dedicated task force, accompanied by military personnel, to enforce proper waste disposal and curb indiscriminate dumping.

“The Mayor plans to put a task force and a military escort to accompany the task force. They will be ensuring that the right things are done,” Mr Kotoka stated.

He acknowledged the challenges ahead but expressed optimism about the outcome.

“It’s not going to be very easy or quick, but we believe we will get there,” he assured.

A report shared by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) last year revealed a worrying statistic: about two million two hundred thousand households in the country face poor sanitation, overcrowding, and unsafe housing conditions.

Speaking at the launch of the report, the New Slums and Informal Settlements Thematic Report, on Monday, June 30, the Government Statistician, Dr Alhassan Iddrisu, noted that these individuals have established their homes in slums and informal settlements.

According to him, nearly one in three city dwellers in Ghana, representing about 4.8 million people, live in slums. He emphasised that other countries experience even higher rates of slum habitation, particularly within the sub-Saharan African region.

“Roughly 30.8 per cent of the urban population, or 4.8 million people, are living in slums, a ratio that exceeds the global average of 24.7 per cent but is lower than the sub-Saharan Africa average of 53.9 per cent,” he said.

“Additionally, 46.1 per cent of urban households, or over 2.2 million households, are living in slum conditions. That means nearly one in every two urban households is facing one or more of the four deprivations,” he added.

He indicated that many households in urban areas are living in environments that do not support proper housing and urban development.

The data revealed that the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions are heavily challenged by slum conditions, with Greater Accra recording 52.5 per cent and Ashanti Region 51.8 per cent. The report noted that most of these dwellers live in rented accommodation.

The other regions reported significantly lower proportions, highlighting a stark regional disparity.

“The Northern Region (4.2 per cent), followed by Savannah (3.6 per cent) and Oti (1.1 per cent), recorded the highest extreme slum intensities. By extreme slum intensity, we mean the proportion of neighbourhoods that exhibit all four slum characteristics in the region.

“But even in more developed regions like Greater Accra and Ashanti, over half of slum households live in rented accommodation,” parts of the report read.

The Service described the findings as alarming and called for a collaborative national effort to address the growing housing and sanitation challenges.

To check the rise in slum communities, the GSS called on local government authorities to implement targeted strategies within districts and municipalities.

In February this year, the Member of Parliament for Ahanta West, Mavis Kuukua Bissue, noted that sanitation issues, homelessness, and the proliferation of slums remain critical challenges undermining the health, dignity, and economic potential of citizens, particularly the youth.

She cited inadequate housing, economic hardship, unemployment, poverty, and rapid rural-urban migration as contributory factors to the expansion of slums, homelessness, and streetism. These challenges, she said, have also given rise to improper and indiscriminate waste disposal practices and the poor sanitation situation in the country.

“We cannot continue to downplay the severity of this challenge, seeing the very danger it poses to our survival as a people,” she noted.

Honourable Bissue proposed a national dialogue on rural-urban migration and economic empowerment, deliberations on housing and urbanisation strategies for rural communities, a national drive on proper waste segregation and disposal, public-private partnerships, the provision of labelled litter bins in designated areas and public spaces, and the strict enforcement of sanitation laws, among others.