Accra to become cleanest city in Africa mantra a joke; Bad example of our media

An attitude exhibited by Ghana’s media men during the just ended 2019 Budget hearing in parliament has left many a Ghanaian hopeless in President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s agenda to make Accra the cleanest city in the whole of Africa.

The media men left a rubbish engulfed stand allocated to them making people wonder whether it was the same people who are campaigning for Ghanaians to change their attitude towards the culture of littering, haphazard dumping of refuse, home and office waste management and general bad environmental sanitation.

Observers including diplomatic corps at the forum at the end of the programme during an interaction, said what the journalists had done was despicable knowing the caliber of dignitaries who attended the programme.

“This is not the interest demonstrated by the media in the fight against the galamsey menace sometime and it is such an embarrassing situation at hand”, said one of the observers.

Interestingly relying on the media to propagate his agenda to the citizenry, H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, promised to make the state capital the cleanest city on the African continent at the end of his first term of office when the President of the Ngleshie Alata Traditional Council, Oblempong Nii Kojo Ababio, together with the Chiefs and people of Jamestown, enstooled him as a Chief of Jamestown. He was given the stool name “Nii Kwaku Ablade Okogyeaman” to wit “Royal Warrior” (one who fight to redeem his people) during a durbar on Sunday April 23, 2019 at Jamestown in Accra.

The media undoubtedly is a key pillar to consider making the promise feasible by using their platforms to educate, inform and report issues on waste collection and management to encourage citizens to be responsible in that regard.

As a young journalist who acts as an environmental sanitation advocate, I was alarmed by the refuse left behind by the journalist in their stand as compared to the others and I was compelled by the advocacy spirit to name and shame my senior colleagues and maybe myself. We cannot continue to disappoint our people and blame politicians for nothing as our training positions us as community developers and societal shapers.

I will use the opportunity to call on the Ghana Journalists Association to ensure that there is discipline among its members so as not to repeat this anywhere to continue to tarnish our hard earned reputation. Also, our leadership should do the needful by ensuring there are designed waste bins at functions and public places such as the parliament house for people to put their waste on. Equally households must make it a point to maintain a waste bin for their domestic wastes.

Finally, Ghanaians should be responsible enough to keep an eye on each other towards enhancing a cleaner environment for the benefit of all of us.

The writer is a young environmental sanitation advocate.

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