The Church of Pentecost (CoP), Ghana, in partnership with waste management giants, Zoomlion Ghana Limited (ZGL), has launched a national sanitation campaign with the aim of tackling head-on poor sanitation in the country.
The sanitation campaign—christened: ‘Environmental Care, My Responsibility”—is aimed at encouraging members of the Church of Pentecost across the country on the urgent to aggressively keep their surroundings clean.
It will also seek to engage the general public to become active players in keeping the entire country clean.
Launching the campaign in Accra yesterday, Chairman of Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, indicated that this initiative was part of his church’s corporate social responsibility and also its quota towards the development of Ghana.
The Environmental Care campaign, he intimated, was in line with President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s vision of ensuring that Accra becomes the cleanest city in Africa by year 2020, and by extension the entire country.
To this end, he expressed that the CoP was very committed towards partnering the government to bring about development.
According to Apostle Nyamekye, the implementation of this campaign will be in four phases.
The first phase, he disclosed, will involve educating church members and Ghanaians in general on the need to have a positive attitude towards the environment.
“After that there would be clean-up exercises, which purpose will ensure that members of the church are physical and actively involved community-based environmental initiatives and other activities respectively.
Touching on the other activities, Apostle Nyamekye indicated that these include bi-monthly clean-up exercises, provision of bins for church members, and tree planting which will be done with the Forestry Commission.
Against this background, the chairman of the Church of Pentecost called on government and stakeholders within the waste management space to support them.
He commended Zoomlion Ghana Limited for their decision to partner church in ensuring that ‘Ghana is always clean.’
Apostle Nyamekye further used the opportunity to re-affirm his church’s commitment to assist the government better the lives of Ghanaians.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Zoomlion, Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, who is an Elder of the church, described this initiative as a divine calling on the CoP to help in the war against filth.
He therefore charged Ghanaians to act as security agents and arrest waste, ‘beginning from our homes.’
He commended the leadership of the CoP, and pledged his company’s support to ensure that this sanitation campaign becomes a success story.
He cited examples of countries including Singapore, Rwanda, Mauritius amongst others that have benefitted enormously by turning waste into cash.
For her part, the Minister of Sanitation and Environment, Madam Cecilia Dapaah, commended the CoP for the initiative and urged other churches to emulate.
She gave the government’s assurance to support the initiative. She further seized the chance to impress upon Ghanaians to make “sanitation as our business.”
The Mayor of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah, pledged the support of all the 245 assemblies across the country towards the success of the campaign.
However, he indicated that some progress had been made in the area of managing waste in Accra.
