City faces waste management, housing challenges

Published in the Daily Graphic on 14 Nov 2009 pg 18

Story: Matilda Attram

The Head of the Local Government Service, Mr Akwasi Oppong-Fosu, has stated that waste management and housing were key challenges facing the local economy.
He said although the country produced more waste which could be used to generate other resources, it had no desire to manage such products due to lack of resources.
Mr Oppong-Fosu made this statement at a stakeholders meeting with delegates of a global waste recycling company, Global Entrepreneurial Endeavours of the United States of America. The meeting aimed at creating a partnership with the Government to install two Biosphere Process Systems for recovery, recycling and the re-use of natural resources.
The Vice President of the Global Entrepreneurial Endeavours LP of the United States, Mr Adrian Oliveira, explained that Biosphere was a specially designed energy generation facility that used household waste as fuel and helped to solve some societal challenges such as population growth, climate change, dependence on fossil fuels and resource management through recycling.
He said the by-products generated from the process could produce energy for electricity and organic manure for farming.
"There is value in recycling plastic and metals among other waste materials, because the system diverts 100 per cent waste into materials that generate energy for useful purposes," he said.
The President of the ASEC Corporation and Cape Verdean American Business Organisation in the United States, Mr John Monteiro, further indicated that the biosphere process would help eliminate residual waste buried in the earth and water bodies.
"This is by converting the disposable materials such as used carpets, industrial by products, raw sewage, composite building by products into clean, green power and portable waste," he stated.
In a presentation by the President of BA Perazim Incorporated of the United States, Mr Ransford Bawa, noted that housing was in high demand in the country and civil servants could not afford to rent or buy them.
He said estate developers and housing companies only focused on building in the urban areas leaving out the districts where most people also needed affordable houses.
"Demand for housing in Ghana is too high for the average man to bear. This is why we want to figure out all districts in the country to create a community that an average person can have a place to live in, "he said.
Mr Bawa further stated that the opportunity to establish a company to manufacture the necessary building materials for construction would create job opportunities for Ghanaians through the necessary training.
He appealed to the local government authorities to promote a planned system that could improve on the housing system in the country.