The Krachi East Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Safo Nketiah, has commended Zoomlion Ghana Limited for its numerous interventions in the area, stressing that the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities were complementing the assembly’s development efforts.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Sanitation and Water Resources engagement with Metropolitan Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) in Ho, Volta Region on Saturday, September 19, 2026, Hon. Nketiah outlined a series of interventions undertaken by the assembly with support from Zoomlion, which he said deserved recognition and spotlight.
He noted that the company had been a reliable partner, particularly in ensuring that the municipality was always clean.
According to him, Zoomlion’s collaboration with the Krachi East Municipal Assembly has been effective, which has seen the company offer various free waste management services.
“We are collaborating very well with Zoomlion and they are helping my municipality in lifting waste and also with clean-up exercises free of charge. During the National Sanitation Day clean-up, Zoomlion supports us with waste cleaning materials,” he disclosed.
Mr. Nketiah underscored that if not for Zoomlion’s IRECOP facility located at Yabram in the municipal, his area would have faced serious challenges as to where to dump its waste, especially “when we don’t have a landfill site.”
“But because of the IRECOP, all our waste is channelled there. And now the most important thing is that because of the IRECOP, we have very cheap organic fertilisers which are helping our farmers,” he indicated.
These interventions from Zoomlion, the MCE said, had eased pressure on the municipal’s limited resources and called on other corporate bodies to emulate Zoomlion’s example by supporting assemblies in addressing sanitation and water challenges.
However, he said the 10 per cent sanitation allocation from the District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) was inadequate to meet the growing sanitation needs of the districts, making private sector support critical.
He urged the Parliamentary Select Committee on Sanitation and Water Resources to consider the interventions of companies such as Zoomlion in its assessments, noting that their contributions were helping to bridge the financing gap in the sanitation and water sectors.
He also appealed to the government to increase and ensure timely release of the sanitation allocation to assemblies to enable them to plan and execute sanitation programmes effectively.
The Krachi East MCE’s remarks came as MMDAs in the Volta and Oti Regions raised concerns that inadequate skip and refuse containers were hampering sanitation efforts in their areas, with many of the containers in use worn out.
The issue came to the fore when members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Sanitation and Water Resources engaged the MMDCEs in the two regions in Ho as part of their parliamentary oversight responsibility.
Addressing the Committee, chaired by the MP for Salaga South, the District Chief Executive of North Tongu, Victoria Amefadzi Doe Yawa, said the lack of skip containers was undermining effective waste collection in her district.
“We are grateful to the Volta River Authority (VRA), which donated six skip containers to my district,” she said, adding that the assembly was in the process of procuring more.
She, however, admitted that community participation in sanitation programmes remained low despite ongoing sensitisation efforts.
The engagement also revealed that many districts were not incentivising the sweepers they recruit well enough.
For North Tongu, Mrs. Doe Yawa disclosed that sweepers were paid between GH¢300 and GH¢350 a month, an amount Chairman Oti Bless described as inadequate and urged assemblies to motivate their sanitation workers to give off their best.
For other districts, including Central Tongu, Afadzato South, Akatsi North, Ketu North and Adaklu, the lack of an engineered landfill site and a permanent refuse disposal site emerged as a major concern.
The DCE of Central Tongu, Caroline Sefanu Dogbornu, who represented the DCE, Dodzi Addison Mornyuie, lamented that the absence of a permanent disposal site in her area was not helping their sanitation fight.
The Committee’s engagement formed part of a monitoring exercise to establish how the assemblies were accessing and utilising the 10 percent sanitation allocation from the District Assemblies Common Fund.
It also sought to determine the amounts allocated for the 2025 and 2026 financial years, how much had actually been received, the sanitation programmes undertaken and the challenges affecting access and utilisation.
The MMDAs were expected to outline their sanitation challenges and explain whether the allocation was adequate to meet their needs.
One of the assemblies that presented its accounts was North Tongu.
According to its presentation, the assembly received GH¢15.45 million from its 2025 DACF allocation of about GH¢21.27 million, with approximately GH¢1.55 million representing the 10 percent sanitation allocation.
The funds were used for interventions including the construction of six-seater water-closet facilities at Mepoase Primary School and Aveime Girls School, monthly district sanitation programmes, procurement of sanitation equipment, public education, monitoring activities and the Sanitation Improvement Package and fumigation.
For 2026, the assembly reported an expected DACF allocation of about GH¢25.76 million, of which approximately GH¢8.27 million had been received by the first and second quarters, translating into a sanitation allocation of about GH¢826,599.
Beyond expenditure, the presentations highlighted challenges affecting the assemblies’ ability to address sanitation needs, including inadequate waste containers and logistics, irregular waste collection, limited funding for sanitation infrastructure, rapid growth in waste generation and difficulties in sustaining public participation.
The Committee also sought clarification on interventions presented, including the number and remuneration of sanitation workers, waste collection arrangements and the progress of sanitation and water projects. In one case, an assembly explained that 16 market sweepers were engaged and paid between GH¢300 and GH¢350 a month to clean designated markets after market days.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines, the Deputy Ranking Member of the Committee and Member of Parliament for Bekwai, Ralph Opoku-Adusei, said the exercise aimed to establish what the MMDAs were doing with the 10 per cent and 20 per cent allocations designated for sanitation and water resources respectively.
He said the engagements were also helping the Committee understand the difficulties confronting the assemblies, including limitations on their control over expenditures tied to central government arrangements such as the Sanitation Improvement Package (SIP).
Mr. Opoku-Adusei noted that while the sanitation allocation had given assemblies some resources to address sanitation problems, the broader challenge remained the availability of adequate and dedicated financing for sanitation.
He also called for sanitation activities such as National Sanitation Day clean-ups to be linked to the specific needs of individual districts and municipalities and assessed based on the results achieved.
The Committee is expected to continue engaging other MMDAs as it gathers information on sanitation financing, expenditure, programme implementation and challenges across the two regions before making recommendations to Parliament.