Former President John Dramani Mahama has questioned the usefulness of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, disclosing his intentions of collapsing it upon assumption of office.
The former President says Ghana looks dirtier than when there was no Sanitation Ministry, a department which hitherto, was under the Local Government Ministry.
To save the nation some cost, John Mahama has revealed his intentions of decentralising sanitation to the various assemblies as it used to be.
According to him, even though the Ministry was created to propel the President’s “cleanest city” agenda, the capital city, as it is, is worse than when there was no ministry responsible for sanitation.
Speaking with students of the Wisconsin International University College in Accra Wednesday, April 03, 2024, John Mahama listed the two reasons for which he will shutdown the ministry.
“We will close down the Ministry of Sanitation, one to reduce expenditure and two, I don’t see any use. Our country is dirtier than when there was no Ministry of Sanitation. Indeed, this country was cleaner when our country was under local government than as a standalone ministry and so we’ll close down that ministry and we’ll take the sanitation schedule back to local government,” he noted.
“With cleanliness, we think that it’s the duty of the district assemblies. Every assembly has an obligation to make sure that its district is clean and so we must decentralise sanitation to the district level,” he added.
He also pointed out his intentions of merging the Transport and Aviation ministries, as well as the Information and Communication ministries, revealing that he will make appointment of DCEs based on how clean their districts are.
“Because we want to reduce government expenditure, it’s not only the Sanitation Ministry, in transport, Aviation and Railway, we are going to close them down and send them to the transport ministry. We are going to combine Information and Communications again, and so we want to reduce the number of ministries,” he stated.
“So when we are going to change district chief executives and you have a dirty district, we’ll remove you and bring someone who can make sure that the district is clean,” he added.