Copyright a1radioonline
Upper East Minister warns Atulbabisi residents over illegal waste dumping at Bolgatanga Jubilee Park The Upper East Regional Minister, Donatus Akamugri Atanga, has issued a strong caution to residents of the Atulbabisi community over the filtration and indiscriminate waste disposal within the premises of the Jubilee Park in Bolgatanga. Mr Atanga made these remarks during the monthly National Sanitation Day exercise. The Jubilee Park in the Upper East Region is located in the Atulbabisi community in the Bolgatanga Municipality and serves as a regional monument and public gathering space for residents. In recent times, however, some residents living near the park have turned the area into a place of convenience and a dumping site. The Upper East Regional Minister personally discovered a large heap of waste in the park during the clean-up exercise, which angered him and prompted him to strongly caution residents. “You can see this particular place, for instance, was cleared last month. You can see the rubbish that is still dumped here and you can see behind me, this is the community. And so even the people who are very close to this area, for instance, they are also sitting here. And you can see the stuff that the people are inhaling, and that affects their health. So, we are engaging the Assembly Member for this area, that after this clean-up exercise, we want him to engage the community so that nobody dumps any rubbish here. Because this is not a rubbish dump; this is part of the Jubilee Park. This is behind the structure where people sit, so if you litter here and sit here when people are sitting here…” “The other issue with this facility is that the wall is short and people are scaling it. And so I’m in talks with the Municipal Assembly to see how we are going to raise the wall so that people cannot scale in to litter the place. Because this is a centre for national activities. Public activities have to be organised here. It does not give any good impression of the region,” he stressed. “And so I want to appeal to the citizens and the community where this facility is located. Their parents gave this land for these functions, so they should help the government and the Municipal Assembly to keep this place neat for the purpose for which the land was devoted. What we understand is that this place is in the settlement, and we also have some of our traditional gods here,” the minister appealed. Speaking off-camera, the Assembly Member for the Atulbabisi Electoral Area, Aaron Adongo, agreed with the minister but said his efforts to stop residents from dumping waste at the park have been unsuccessful because most residents carry out the act during the dark hours. Some residents who also spoke off-camera placed some of the blame on commercial drivers who park their buses at the Jubilee Park and off-load the waste passengers generate in their vehicles. The Regional Minister disclosed that the walls of the park will be extended upwards and security gates installed to prevent further littering. Donatus Akamugri Atanga has therefore issued a warning to anyone found littering at the Jubilee Park. Source: 3news.com
