Ghana loses $300 million annually due mainly to poor sanitation, the Director of the Institute of Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS) at the University of Ghana, Prof.Christopher Gordon, has said.
According to him, the cost incurred was mainly as a result of the country’s inability to turn waste into resources, poor sanitation delivery by the agencies responsible and the time spent on accessing water and sanitation facilities.
He contended that the amount could be used to purchase 500 megawatts of power to address the current energy crisis in the country.
Speaking at a waste management project launch in Accra yesterday, Prof. Gordon said the country’s inability to utilise the waste it generated annually was causing the nation a heavy financial loss and cautioned that if the situation was not addressed, it could pose greater problems for the country.
The project launch, dubbed: “Utilisation of organic waste to improve agricultural productivity”, is being undertaken in the Ga West municipality by the IESS.
The goal of the project is to enhance food security and livelihoods among the peri-urban poor through improved agricultural productivity and sustainable waste management practices.
More harm Prof. Gordon said apart from the financial loss, the health implications of the sanitation situation in the country were a major worry.
“A middle-income country has no place for 17,000 cholera cases and 150 deaths reported in the Greater Accra Region, as well as all the other health and social consequences that follow such outbreaks,” he said.
He attributed the poor sanitation situation to the non implementation of the country’s National Environmental Sanitation policy.
“We have not made any serious attempts to maximise the benefits we get from waste and this has resulted in solid waste being an albatross around the neck of district management,” he said.
Prof. Gordon said Ghana should learn from the examples of The Philippines and Sweden, adding, “These two countries have generated fuel and energy, respectively, from waste to power their homes, to the extent that they now import waste from other countries and transform it into energy.”
Project component In his welcoming address, a fellow at the IESS, Dr Dzidzo Yirenya-Tawiah, said the institute chose the Ga West municipality based on the high volume of waste generated there daily.
Currently, the municipality generates approximately 152.2 metric tonnes of solid waste per day. This means that over 55,555 tonnes of waste is generated per year.
Dr Yirenya-Tawiah mentioned waste segregation promotion, capacity building in composting, the engagement of unemployed youth and soil fertility improvement as the four major components of the project.
She said the first phase of the project, which started in January 2015, would focus on baseline data collection and capacity building.
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