Mahama rates Sanitation Ministry as one of the “useless” ministries ever created

The Flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, says the newly created Ministry of Sanitation is one of the useless ministries ever created.

According to him, in spite of having a ministry dedicated to sanitation, Ghana’s capital Accra remains dirty.

“Accra has become the dirtiest city, I think in the whole of West Africa,” he said in a live video encounter with the public on Monday, stressing that having travelled to Abidjan in Ivory Coast and Abuja in Nigeria, these places “look cleaner than Accra”.

The Sanitation and Water Resources Ministry was created in January 2017 to provide the needed support to the sanitation and water sectors across the country.

The ministry has since 2017 been managed by two sector ministers, Joseph Kofi Adda and Cecilia Abena Dapaah.

However, the former President said when elected again, he will scrap the ministry and assign its responsibility to the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

His comments come on the heels of a huge public outcry about the state of sanitation in the country’s cities, against the backdrop of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s promise to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa by the end of 2020.

“It hasn’t proven itself. it has not achieved anything in the last three years. So we will move it back to the Local Government Ministry.

“We will put a deputy minister there who we will empower to make sure that the district assemblies are doing the right thing, and that they are surcharging people who keep their compounds dirty or who do not keep their surroundings clean,” he said.

He also accused the NPP of politicising his sanitation campaign which he was in office. The campaign was aimed at encouraging the public to do communal work once every month.

With Accra’s filth out of the way, he took shots at the size of the Akufo-Addo government, describing it as a drain on the public purse.

He questioned the need for the Monitoring and Evaluation Ministry and Ministry of Procurement saying 40 of the ministers appointed were not necessary.

The NDC Candidate also wondered why three years into the life of the government, there had been no reshuffle when it was clear some of the ministers were ineffective.

Watch the full video below