Video: It's only in Ghana that we lock dust bins - Sad Osafo-Marfo speaks

The Senior Minister, Nana Yaw Osafo-Marfo, says Ghana waste extra cash to lock rubbish bins in town because of people's mindset.

The Senior Minister speaking at the ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’ Consultative Forum with civil society organisations in Accra, said locking rubbish bins is only done in Ghana to prevent people from stealing them.

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly has started locking rubbish bins in town as a move to prevent people from stealing them.

“I was just walking around and I discovered that they (the AMA) have introduced some dustbins.

And they’ve bolted this with a lock and put it on a concrete block and surrounded it such that nobody can remove them. Is this necessary.” He worriedly asked.

He wondered why such extreme measures were needed in protecting dustbins considering the cost involved.

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“The cost of putting a dustbin is far more than the dustbin itself. Yes, that is the lock, the concrete, the metal belt, and everything, is far more than the dustbin.”

Mr Osafo-Marfo said this is down to the mindset of Ghanaians.

"Elsewhere in the world these things are put at vantage points and nobody will attempt to take it to their house to put water in it. But here in Ghana if you leave them out unprotected, people will remove them to their houses for their personal use.”

The Senior Minister said that the necessity to check sanitation issues makes the provision of dustbins and other effective measures imperative, and therefore called for a change of mindset among Ghanaians.

“So because of the mindset of our own people we’ve got to this extent to protect a dustbin. We are worried about sanitation and if we don’t provide containers for the rubbish there will be problems.

Now AMA has to go to this extent to provide these and when I saw it I felt very sad. This is a mindset problem and we should move away from this, it is not helping development” He said.

Watch full video below

Video credit: MyJoyOnline TV

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