The Ministry of Tourism Culture and Creative Arts has commissioned a six-member task-force to bring some sanity to Nzulezu, one of Africa’s most popular communities on stilts.
Sanitary conditions at Nzulezu leaves many tourists dumbfounded on why such a renowned and revered tourist attraction site can be found in such an unhealthy situation.
Apart from faecal matter, all other waste generated at Nzulezu is dumped in the very river they cook and drink from.
“We have no refuse dump, we have no dustbins, and every waste we generate is dropped in this Amanzule River or is dropped around. This is what we have been doing all this while. We drink from this same River that our wastewater from our bathhouses gets back into. Our children swim in this same river and all other things we need to do,” a resident, Philip Arthur, told Citi News in an interview.
The Tourism Minister Catherine Ablema Afeku, described the practice as unacceptable and a threat to the tourism potential of the community.
During a visit to the community on Wednesday as part of the ministry’s Say No to Open Defecation campaign, Mrs. Afeku, who is also the Member of Parliament for the Evalue Ajomor Gwira Constituency in the Western Region, commissioned the task-force saying, “who we are going to pay them GH400 each a month for a year from the ministry’s budget”.
“We are going to clean the community of the filth that has engulfed it. In the next one year the Municipal Chief Executives for Jomoro and Nzema East are going to supervise the work of the task-force to cart away all the filth from the community to a dry ground. We want the chiefs and people in the community to own this initiative and to ensure that the community is clean in the next one year”.
The Minister then presented a high horse power outboard motor to the community “to be used to cart the filth from the community to dry grounds and also to be used to transport pregnant women who will need health care outside the community”.
According to the Minister, this is part of the ministry’s grand plan at making tourism sites attractive to tourists to promote tourism.
source: citinewsroom.com