Chairman of Parliament’s Select Committee on Environment, Science and Technology, Yaw Frimpong Addo, has called for calm following recent developments surrounding the Youth Employment Agency’s (YEA) sanitation module partnership with Zoomlion Ghana Limited.
He asserts the controversy will not impact the country’s environmental sanitation efforts, contrary to widespread concerns that suggest so. His comments follow remarks by the Chief Executive of the YEA, Malik Basintale, indicating that the agency’s contract with Zoomlion for waste management will not be renewed in its current form.
According to the Chairman, the information out in the public domain is incongruous with the realities on the ground, emphasising the need for an urgent stakeholder engagement to spell out the facts about the brouhaha surrounding the sector.
He was speaking after the Committee completed a tour to the Jospong Group of Company’s waste treatment plants in four regions.
“Let me also emphasize that there are news items out there purporting to be coming from the YEA. That is not wholly true,” he stated, adding that “people should not panic over it because it’s not going to affect the work of environmental sanitation.”
He indicated that the issues pertaining to YEA and its agencies under the waste management module is within the remit of Parliament and it is an issue the Committee will prioritise in its report after touring the middle belt of Ghana to ascertain firsthand information on waste management.
“The workers there, if the allocations that they are talking about is something that we need to have a second look at, we will discuss it in our report and it will come to the floor of Parliament. Because that is the arena that the representatives of the people meet and discuss debate issues.
“So, we don’t want this thing to go out there that, look, Ghana is in crisis because 40-something thousand people are going to be laid off and the implications of sanitation…. –Certainly it calls for concern.
“But we should not panic because it is not something that is outside the domain of Parliament that the people have to resolve,” he reiterated.
Frimpong Addo, who is also the MP for Manso Adubia, emphasized the importance of government-private sector collaboration in addressing challenges in waste management to protect the environment.
“We just have to sit down with the private sector entity and see how there is that cooperation. It is a cooperation between the private sector and government.
“So, if there is a problem, we just have to sit down and think through some of the challenges that have resulted into these headlines that we are reading,” he re-emphasised.
The four regions toured by the Committee include the Ashanti Region region where the MPs were briefed on the operations of the Kumasi Compost and Recycling Plant (KCARP), the Wastewater Treatment Plant and the Medical Waste Treatment Plant.
The team continued its tour to the Western North, Bono and Ahafo regions where the Integrated Recycling and Compost Plants (IRECOP) in Sefwi Wiawso, Sunyani and Goaso respectively, were visited.