ZOOMLION LAUNCHES PROJECT TO CLEAN BEACHES (SEPT 23, PAGE 21)

ZOIL Services Limited, a subsidiary of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, a waste management company, in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology, has launched an Eco Brigade Project for the daily cleaning of the beaches as well as planting of coconut trees and mangroves along the country’s four coastal regions.
The coastal regions are the Central, Western, Greater Accra and Volta.
The project is to ensure sustainability of maintenance of sanitation and restoration of the biodiversity in the coastal communities.
The project aims at recruiting 10,000 people from the coastal communities who will also be trained in emergency oil spillage containment on our seas and along the shore-line.
Speaking at the launch of the project at Esiama in the Ellembelle District in the Western Region, the Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Ms Sherry Ayitey, stated that issues on environment had attracted a lot of concerns from several quarters in recent times.
The situation, she said, had been occasioned by the fact that the environment contained the various elements from which human survival is derived.
Ms Ayitey, however, added that the pressure of increased human population and its attendant activities brought that sort of life and the question of how long the environment would be able to support human lives.
“Globally, we talk of the grave consequences of climate change affecting rainfall patterns in both its intensity and distribution, rising sea levels and its effects on fishing communities, coastal erosion and the negative consequences on coastal communities,” she said.
She assured Ghanaians that the Government was up to the task and would surely skip the dirty part of development through well-designed programmes, such as the Eco Brigade Project.
Ms Ayitey said employees of the project would not only be engaged in the cleaning and monitoring of the beach fronts, but would also ensure that the beaches were clean for both local and foreign tourists.
That, she said, would obviously impact positively on the health of the citizenry along the coast and tourists as well.
She emphasised that such environmentally related employment opportunities would not be restricted only to the coast, adding that the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology was also actively developing an underwater timber harvesting, processing and marketing in the Volta River Lake.
Ms Ayitey said her ministry and Ministries of Education and Energy would plan to ensure that the universities and polytechnics produced people with the technical skills needed to push the oil industry.
The Minister of Health, Dr George Sipa-Adjah Yankey, said the launch of the Eco Brigade Project was part of the country’s preparation towards the oil production.
He explained that while the country would benefit from the oil find, it was also anticipated that there would be some difficulties.
Dr Yankey said the blessing these people would derive from the oil industry should not turn into a curse, and that there was a need to ensure that the marine products were safe and good for human consumption.
The Deputy Minister of Tourism, Mr Kwabena Osei Acheampong, urged metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives to ensure that sand winning activities at the beaches were ceased.
He stated that sand winning activities had reduced some of the beaches to rocky areas.
The Minister of Energy, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, said clean environment was the greatest legacy the people could bequeath to the future generation .
In an address read on his behalf, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Rashid Pelpuo, reiterated that the ministry would not dispose of employees of the National Youth and Employment Programme, and that about 41,000 people would be employed in the programme by the end of the year.