The police have arrested a sewage tanker driver for dumping human waste into the Odaw drain.
The driver when questioned about his actions by residents said he was authorised by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the assemblyman of the area to dump the human excreta into the drain.
The District Environmental Health Officer, Joseph Asitanga, told Joy News that he got to know about the action of the sewage tanker driver on Monday, November 1, 2021, and he initiated a move to get the driver arrested.
“I picked up information yesterday from a community member at Avernor that there was this particular sewage tanker at the tip of the Odaw river discharging raw human waste into it. So they sent me the pictures of the truck and the discharge. Upon the information I received from the community members, this morning we made a move to investigate to see which truck has come to do that particular exercise and by our tracking, we moved to the Lavender Hill where the sewage drivers park their cars but we couldn’t get the truck,” Joseph Asitanga said.
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He said the search party successfully located the driver after picking his contact number from the pictures that were sent to him earlier.
“Thankfully, the informant was able to take a picture of the truck so we took the picture, opened it and realised that there was a contact number attached to the truck. So based on that, we called on the truck that we have a tank that we want to empty. By then, we had made an arrangement with the police and we were waiting for his arrest. So upon the call, he moved the car to the agreed location in Kaneshie and the driver was apprehended immediately he got here,” he explained.
Joseph Asitanga stated that the driver was currently in police custody and the members of the assembly were processing documents to get the driver to stand trial at the sanitation court.
The assemblyman for the Avenor electoral area, Alfred Asiedu Adjei, said he was not aware of the sewage driver’s actions.
“This morning someone sent me a video of a driver dumping human waste into the Avenor Odaw drain and the driver boldly said the assembly member asked him to come and do so and I was taken aback, so I took my time to watch the video and quickly I had to report the matter to the sanitation department at the sub-metro, that is AMA,” the assembly member for the Avenor electoral area said.
Alfred Asiedu Adjei mentioned that the owner of the sewage truck has also been arrested by the police.