A 60-year-old dumpsite at Droboso district in the Wenchi Municipality of the Bono region has been evacuated with others.
This, is part of the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources’ initiative to evacuate all dumpsites in the country, especially those closer to residential areas.
The exercise included a Kwase dumpsite which has also been in existence for 50 years.
The Municipal Chief Executive of Wenchi Municipality, Dr. Patrick Kwakye Afriyie said the exercise which saw three dumpsites being evacuated is part of government’s priorities to deal with such sites to prevent the harmful effects they cause.
The MCE said the erstwhile John Agyekum Kufuor government undertook a similar exercise at the Wenchi market which has now been converted into a maize market.
“The Wenchi Maize Market used to be a dumpsite which was evacuated and converted by then John Agyekum Kufuor”, he said.
“The municipality has a temporal landfill site which is being used to burry waste and plans are ongoing to ensure an engineered landfill site to serve the municipality”, he emphasised.
The residents said the dumpsite has been giving them problems due to the mosquitoes it breeds, causing cholera and malaria.
Furthermore, the residents said they are elated their consistent plea to the government to evacuate the dumpsite has been heeded to.
A sanitation guard at the Drobo community, Kofi Osei, indicated they would no longer tolerate dumping of refuse at the site after the evacuation.
He gave the assurance they were ready to pay a token to dump their garbage in containers that would be provided to the community to avoid a recurrence of the site developing into heap of rubbish.
