By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Aug. 24, GNA – Ms. Anna Naa Adukwei Addo, the Tema West Municipal Chief Executive Officer, has visited some electoral areas in the municipality to gather first-hand information on issues in the communities.
Ms. Addo was accompanied by other officials of the Assembly.
She visited the Halcrow electoral area in community two and the community five electoral area, where she interacted with residents and assembly members.
Ms Addo initiated the electoral area tours in 2022 with a plan to dedicate one week annually to visit the 11 electoral areas in the municipality to know what was happening on the ground.
Briefing the media after the tour, she said the areas were selected due to some serious issues, including drainage, sewer, and school infrastructure that had come to her attention.
She said, for instance, that the public nursery school at Tema Community Two-BBC, which was built by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, had developed a lot of issues that needed immediate attention, adding that the Assembly had put in measures to ensure its refurbishment to ensure the safety of the children schooling in it.
At the Star Basic School in community five, she said since the construction of the school in 1974, it had not seen any major redevelopment, leading to the development of serious structural defects that posed a danger to the school community.
She indicated that the engineers of the TWMA had said that the building had exceeded its economic lifespan, therefore the move to build an 18-unit classroom block to replace the dilapidated one.
The Chief Executive Officer said currently a six-class room unit block had been completed in the first phase, expressing the hope that the remaining 12-classroom unit block, which would contain a library and ICT centre, would be ready by the middle of next year.
She said the pupils would then be fully relocated into the new structures for the demolition of the old ones to avert any disaster that would impede the safety of pupils and teachers.
Touching on other issues observed in the electoral areas, she said choked gutters and sewer problems were dominant in the areas visited, saying officers from the Assembly would come with excavators to clear some areas that were beyond the capability of residents to clean.
She, however, added that some of the choked gutters were the result of poor sanitation actions by the residents, adding the situation would be tackled through intensified education of residents on the consequences of their actions.
She again said that after the education, the environmental health department of the Assembly would then move in to enforce the sanitation bylaws, including the operation Clean Your Frontage, which mandates residents to clean their siding and gutters or be summoned.
Meanwhile, residents in the areas visited complained of broken drainage and blocked sewer lines, which led to flooding of their homes whenever it rained.
According to them, they were ready to maintain the drains and therefore urged the assembly to clear containers erected on sewer lines and drainages, as that contributed to the issue of blockage and overflow.
GNA