As of the end of May this year, 15 months after it was implemented, the sanitation and pollution fee of 10GP per litre on petroleum products had amassed more than GHC196.5 million, according to Professor Martin Oteng-Ababio, Provost of the College of Education at the University of Ghana.
Despite the influx, he claimed that the country’s sanitation industry faced a gloomy future because of years of ineffective policymaking.
For example, he noted that despite the government imposing a 10% Environmental Excise Tax (EET) on plastic makers earlier in 2011 to raise money to address the plastics crisis, there was no accurate data available on how much money had accrued to the fund and how it had been applied.
The goal of the sanitary levy is to raise money for infrastructure purchases in the sanitation industry.
During his first lecture at the University of Ghana, Legon, titled “Double standards, single purpose: dismantling the fence wall for sustainable urban waste management,” Prof. Oteng-Ababio made the observations.
Prof. Oteng-Ababio traced the development of Ghana’s waste management systems from the colonial era to the present while critically evaluating policy options, saying that while the nation had over 136 waste policies, the majority of them were “inappropriate, misplaced, irrelevant, and harmful,” highlighting the fact that most of them were political in nature.
“I provide consulting services to the majority of the major waste management and sanitation companies.
Every time there is a change in leadership, people tremble because if they spend money on waste management technology and there are political problems, they could get into trouble.
Additionally, he looked at how garbage had been defined, conceptualized, created, and handled in modern metropolitan settings and across many cultural practices.
The lecture had as its premise that the rate of urban growth, the degree of development, the dynamics of climate change, and the potential for advancing human-centered and ecologically friendly management futures were all intrinsically tied to municipal garbage management.