Kumasi, Dec 30, GNA – The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has approved the introduction of a special waste management levy to address the financing problems associated with refuse collection in the metropolis.
Under the new arrangement, every house in the metropolis will pay a minimum monthly fee of 10,000 cedis towards refuse collection under a Communal Collection Service.
However, households benefiting from the house-to-house collection scheme will pay a minimum of 20,000 cedis per month. The approval was given at a special meeting of the assembly on Wednesday.
Currently, only 400 million cedis out of the 1.5 billion cedis spent monthly in managing solid waste in the metropolis is recovered from beneficiaries, leaving the government and the assembly to bear the remaining monthly deficit of 1.1 billion cedis.
Mr Tony Mensah, Director of Waste Management of KMA, said even though about 1.5 billion cedis are spent every month on refuse collection in Kumasi, the coverage is only 70 per cent.
“With plans far afoot to increase the service coverage in the city to over 80 per cent next year, the 1.1 billion-cedi deficit is set to increase beyond the funding capacity of the government and the assembly unless beneficiaries are made to contribute their widow’s mite towards waste collection service delivery.”
Mr Mensah said in areas where the house-to-house collection scheme is running, households in third class residential areas will now pay a monthly fees of 20,000 cedis, those in second class areas will pay 25,000 cedis whilst those in first class areas will pay 30,000 cedis per month.
“All other areas where the Improved Communal Collection Scheme will operate will have their houses levied 10,000 cedis per month for one storey buildings and 20,000 cedis per month for two storey building”. Mr A.A. Ampong, Co-ordinating Director of KMA, said a chunk of the internally generated funds of the assembly goes into funding waste management, leaving very little for physical projects.
Source: GhanaWeb
