Albert Oppong-Ansah/ Dorcas Stephen
Accra, June 10, GNA – Mr. Solomon Noi-Adzeman Nuetey, Director of Waste Management at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, has called for urgent reforms to Ghana’s urban waste financing model, citing inequities and inefficiencies that left over half of Accra’s waste uncollected,
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, he explained that under the current arrangement, Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies sign franchise agreements with private waste companies, who are then required to collect service fees directly from households.
The arrangement, he noted, has led to private operators prioritising high-income areas while neglecting low-income communities.
“Most companies pick and choose, serving first-class communities where people could pay and abandoning low-income areas,” he said, noting that the situation had led to widespread illegal dumping.
“In low-income communities, residents give their waste to junkies, who dispose of it anywhere at night. That is why uncollected waste keeps rising,
“We need to urgently find sustainable means of financing waste management. The current system is broken,” he said.
Accra generates over 5,000 metric tonnes of waste daily.
Mr. Nuetey, a municipal waste engineer, warned that if all waste were sent to a single site such as the Adipa landfill in the Eastern Region, it would reach full capacity in less than a year.
“We are pretending to be managing waste, but we are mismanaging it,” he stressed.
Citing recent findings by UN-Habitat and local authorities, Mr. Nuetey noted that only 50 per cent of the waste generated in Accra is collected, mainly due to the unaffordability of service fees and inadequate infrastructure.
To address the crisis, he proposed the establishment of a national sanitation fund, modelled on the National Health Insurance Scheme, to guarantee consistent and equitable financing across all communities.
Mr. Nuetey suggested the fund be financed through an eco-levy on all manufactured and imported products.
“Every product must have a token fee that caters for its disposal after use. This money will go into a central fund for government and assemblies to invest in infrastructure,” he explained.
Mr. Nuetey also recommended integrating waste management charges into utility bills and property rates to ensure universal contribution.
“That way, we can hire the best companies to do the work. Waste collection will be streamlined, and source-separated waste will go to the right processing channels, dry to incineration, wet to composting or anaerobic digestion,” he added.
Mr. Nuetey advocated for inter-municipal cooperation, suggesting that six to ten assemblies could combine resources to establish a single waste-to-energy plant, significantly easing the burden on existing landfill sites.
He noted that current tariffs were paradoxically too high for the poor yet insufficient to sustain service providers, particularly amid rising fuel and spare parts costs.
Mr. Nuetey warned that without structural changes to financing and management, Accra’s waste crisis would deepen, undermining public health, environmental safety, and the city’s reputation.
“We need bold reforms now. This problem is solvable, but not with business-as-usual,” he said.
GNA
Edited by Kenneth Sackey