According to the assembly, most of the children sent by their parents to dump refuse at a designated site for a fee kept the money and rather disposed of the refuse into gutters and along the road.

Speaking at a town hall meeting for residents of Ledzokuku in Accra last Monday, the Municipal Development Planning Officer of LEKMA, Mr Kofi Taylor-Appiah, said the initiative was one of the many steps the assembly was taking to improve the sanitation condition in the municipality.

Residents’ participation

The meeting was to enhance the residents’ participation in the local government system and was also used to review the mid-year budget of the assembly.

Most of the issues were raised by the participants bordered on sanitation and the drainage system in the municipality.

While some participants recommended measures to ensure sanitation in the municipality, others recommended that the assembly build day care centres in the various communities in the municipality to enhance education.

A section of the participants

A section of the participants

During the interaction, it came to light that the assembly had spent GH¢96,000.00 this year to improve sanitation in the municipality.

Health implications

Mr Taylor-Appiah said when children were prosecuted, their parents would have to face the law and, therefore, warned parents to advise their children to stop dumping refuse by the roadside when they were sent to take it to the dumpsite.

“We want them to know that dumping refuse into gutters has health implications on the whole community. If someone gets cholera, it affects others and we are also arranging to provide every household with a toilet to reduce open defecation.”

“We are also trying to provide more containers around but it is up to them to deposit refuse in them. We realised that when the children are sent to dump rubbish at the site, they deposit it into gutters and we would start prosecuting them,” he added.