Kumasi Residents demonstrate against KMA over pythons

By:brightwebtv.com/Nana asare barimah

Residents of Atonsu Kuwait, Prabon, Dompoase and its environs in the Asokwa Municipality of the Ashanti region have demonstrated against the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly over the management of the Oti Landfill Site, MyNewsGh.comreports.

Prior to the elevation of Asokwa to a municipality, the refuse dump was under the jurisdiction of the KMA, but authorities at the Asokwa Municipal Assembly say KMA is still holding on to the management of the facility and spending the proceeds realized thereof.
At the demonstration to demand the release of the facility to the Asokwa Municipal Assembly today, some of the demonstrators recounted the troubles they face on a daily basis by having the landfill site in their vicinity.
While some alleged that dead bodies were hidden under refuse in tricycles other garbage trucks and dumped there, others said pythons and mosquitoes have invaded their homes, citing the risk of possible airborne and other diseases.
Opened in 2004, the Oti landfill at Dompoase on the outskirts of Kumasi is an engineered facility covering an area of about 40 hectares where on a daily basis, the city’s solid and liquid wastes are destined.
Kumasi generates an average of 1,500 tonnes of solid waste daily out of which 1,400 is collected with the rest finding its way into drains, gutters and open places, estimates have established.

There are over 400 sanitary sites in Kumasi. These are places where the solid waste is lodged temporarily before they are conveyed to the landfill
The Waste Management Department of the Kumasi metropolitan assembly has said that “all the sanitary sites are still under the management of the KMA although some of them have fallen into the newly created municipal assemblies; this is because the KMA has existing contracts with companies managing the sites”.

In a spirited demand for the legitimacy over the management of the landfill site which has been saddled with debt to J. Standley Owusu Compant Ltd, the private company contracted by the KMA to manage the facility, Elliot Bannor, the Presiding Member of the Asokwa Municipal Assembly said they will continue to demonstrate till the KMA does the needful.
Tricycles and other garbage trucks that had carted garbage to the deposit at the Oti Landfill Site were prevented from dumping their load by the demonstrators on Monday.
Riders and drives were seen stranded and their vehicles lined up waiting to be given the green light to empty their stock into the dump.

Source:MyNewsGh.com/