ZOOMLION TRAINS SANITATION GUARDS (PAGE 25)

ZOOMLION Ghana Limited, waste management experts, has emerged on the scene with the requisite expertise, technical and management competence and resources to support the government and the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to clean-up the cities and towns, improve the quality of the environment and to give tourism a great boost.
Currently, Zoomlion has engaged a total of 900 workers under the sanitation module of the National Youth Employment Programme in the Western Region and it is expected that additional 1,000 workers will be engaged in the region this year.
Already, Zoomlion has engaged 157 sanitation guards this year, who have undergone a four-day training programme in Sekondi, to help improve sanitation in the region.
The recruitment of the sanitation guards is to help ensure the enforcement of environmental sanitation regulations by providing auxiliary staff to support the environmental health and sanitation departments of the MMDAs and sustain the success of the various waste management initiatives.
The sanitation guards concept is also to help bring about change in the habits, behaviour, attitudes and practices among the people and also offer the youth the opportunity to be trained as professional sanitary staff for the environmental health services providing departments.
The exercise will contribute to the improvement in sanitation and help Ghanaians to live in a clean and healthy environment as well as empower the youth to take charge of maintaining descent physical environment for posterity.
The sanitation guards concept was launched by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, in collaboration with the Ministry of Manpower, Youth and Employment in December 2006, as a pilot programme in the Techiman municipality of the Brong Ahafo Region with 40 guards.
Now, Zoomlion Ghana Limited is collaborating with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to train the sanitation guards, who are to assist environmental health officers in enhancing the inspectorate aspect of the environmental health service and equip them with the requisite skills to educate the public and enforce regulations.
Speaking at the opening of the four-day training programme in Sekondi, the Western Regional Minister, Mr Paul Evans Aidoo, said the impact of the programme compelled the ministry to extend it to other metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies. Initially, Zoomlion recruited 1,740 guards with each metropolitan assembly recruiting 10 guards for each sub-metro, 20 guards for each municipal assembly and 10 for each district assembly.
“Two years into the implementation of the concept, some challenges have occurred, thereby necessitating some structural changes in order to address them and also ensure the effective and sustainable management of the concept,” he said.
Mr Aidoo said Zoomlion was addressing some of these challenges.
For example, he said, Zoomlion had taken up the payment of salaries, thus addressing the problem of long delays in the payment of salaries to the guards.
He said the company had provided logistics such as uniforms, tricycles and instituted training programmes for the guards.
“The Western regional co-ordinating council shall support any programme aimed at improving sanitation in the districts, as enshrined in our party’s manifesto, ” he emphasised.
The Western Regional Operations Supervisor of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr Felix Boankrah, expressed the commitment of the company to its private customers such as industries and ministries, departments and agencies of the central government as well as the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.
“We will continue to educate the public on sanitation to create their awareness but there was the need for the public to cooperate and have a change of attitude towards indiscriminate littering, ” he stressed.