President John Dramani Mahama has announced that the government is considering introducing a nationwide monthly clean-up exercise, arguing that the current two-day national campaign is insufficient to tackle the country’s growing sanitation and drainage challenges.
The President made the announcement at Alajo in Accra after joining senior government officials to participate in and inspect the ongoing two-day national clean-up exercise, an initiative aimed at improving environmental sanitation, desilting drains and reducing the risk of flooding in flood-prone communities.
Addressing participants after the exercise, President Mahama said the amount of work required to restore cleanliness and unclog drainage systems across the country highlighted the need for a more consistent national effort.
“Two days are not enough to finish this work, but we are going to institute it so that at least one day every month all of us should come out and clean our surroundings,” he said.
According to the President, the proposed monthly exercise seeks to revive Ghana’s long-standing culture of communal responsibility, where residents collectively maintained clean surroundings.
He noted that rapid urbanisation had contributed to a decline in that tradition, with many people abandoning responsible waste disposal practices.
“That is what our traditional values were about. We are taught to keep a clean environment, but when we all leave our hometowns and come, because of the anonymity of urbanisation, we think that nobody watches us, so we dump those values and we live in filth,” he said.
President Mahama stressed that sustainable improvements in sanitation would require a change in public behaviour and greater commitment from citizens.
“We must change that attitude,” he said.
Beyond the clean-up exercise, the President said the government was intensifying efforts to address recurring flooding through expanded drainage improvement projects.
He disclosed that the Minister of Finance had released GH¢150 million to support flood mitigation measures, including the dredging of streams and other drainage works in vulnerable areas.
“I’m also asking the Minister of Finance; he’s already released 150 million to help with flood mitigation, that is, the dredging of the streams and all that,” the President said.
President Mahama further revealed that personnel from the Ghana Armed Forces would continue clearing drains and undertaking related sanitation activities after the official two-day national exercise concludes.
“And so the military will continue that exercise, even after we have finished this two-day cleanup,” he added.
The nationwide clean-up campaign forms part of the government’s broader strategy to improve environmental sanitation, strengthen flood prevention measures and encourage greater public participation in keeping communities clean.
