To curb the dumping of refuse at the Sakumo Ramsar Site, the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) has prosecuted 10 refuse collectors for desecrating the site.
Dumping of refuse at the Sakumo wetlands has lately become the order of the day, as many young men using tricycles fitted with receptacles and trucks of some notable waste management organisations, are seen every day dumping refuse in a bid to make the place less soggy for the construction of houses.
Mr Edward Shardey, Tema Metropolitan Environmental Health Officer, who announced this at the Assembly?s Third Ordinary Meeting of the Fourth Session, indicated that the 10 waste collectors were arrested in a swoop last week and put before the Tema Sanitation Court where four of them were fined 12 penalty units each.
The swoop was organised by the TMA in collaboration with the Police and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
He added that among the culprits was a man who collects GHC 10 each as toll from the Collectors whenever they dumped their refuse at the Ramsar site.
The Environmental Officer stated that the Magistrate presiding over the Sanitation Court ordered for a psychiatric test to be carried on the self acclaimed dump site officer to ascertain his sanity.
He explained that the order was given after the mother of the man had told the Court that he is mentally challenged.
Mr Shardey gave the assurance that swoops would be carried out often to rid the place of the illegal dumping of refuse.
Assembly members called for tougher punishment to be meted out to culprits of sanitation crimes to serve as deterrent to others.
However, the Sakumo Ramsar Conservation and Resource Users Association (SRCRUA) which is made of farmers and fishermen who earn a living on the wetland, has accused the TMA of prosecuting the wrong people.
According to Mr Richard Agorkpa, President of SRCRUA, the Assembly should have by now gathered enough information about the persons who organise the sale of plots, landguards, toll collection from the collectors.
He said the large scale dumping began well before 2009, and wondered how the TMA refused to even acknowledge complaints filed by environmental groups on the issue, and that users of the wetlands hold the perception that some officials of the Assembly were benefiting in one way or the other from the organised destruction.
He said the swoop was as a result of Ghana News Agency?s (GNA) publications on the degradation of the wetland, and called for investigation into the whole matter.
In an interview with the GNA, Mr Shardey denied any personal involvement in any illegality, and hinted that some persons had tried to influence him with money to help them prepare part of the wetland for the construction of a house, which he flatly refused. GNA
