President John Dramani Mahama has re-launched the National Sanitation Day to be observed by all the 261 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) on the first Saturday of every month, starting from October.
The Day was first launched by President Mahama during the first administration in 2014.
It is as part of efforts by the Government to keep the nation clean.
The re-launch is to empower local government structures by making sanitation a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs), and fostering citizens’ participation and accountability in keeping the environment clean.
President Mahama in his remarks at the re-launch of the National Sanitation Day in Madina near Accra, said aside from organizing National Sanitation Days, Ghanaians must inculcate in their children the spirit and awareness of cleanliness.
The idea of setting one day aside for all to engage in the cleanliness of the environment is a laudable one. The day would lead to the mass mobilization of the people to engage in one activity, which is worthy.
That said, we must also hasten to add that keeping clean requires habitual changes at the individual and institutional level. People who litter are a major cause of the general uncleanliness in our environment and community. People throw away waste and litter indiscriminately without thought or concern for the environment.
We believe that what we should probably be doing, is putting in place measures that make it expensive to litter at the individual level, such as jail time, or paying a fine.
Additionally, the various assemblies should be tasked with ensuring that the environs are clean on a daily basis, as against setting one day aside to ensure cleanliness. It should be a regular, constant practice to keep clean, instead of bringing forth one intervention in a monthly cycle.
(Editorial of the Daily Searchlight of 8th September, 2025).
