FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS TO HELP ASHAIMAN (PAGE 18, JULY 9, 2010)

SOME international financing agencies and NGOs, with support from their foreign partners, have decided to provide sanitation and waste-treatment projects for slum areas in Ashaiman to help upgrade its status as a municipality.
One of such agencies is a Dutch-based project organisation, Safisana Foundation, which is partnering the local Assembly and local operators in a joint-venture agreement to design, build and operate a centralised waste digestion and processing pilot plant in Ashaiman.
Construction work on the pilot waste-treatment project estimated to cost 1.5 million Euros is expected to start on the outskirts of Ashaiman in September for the production of industrial biogas and organic fertiliser.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic at Ashaiman, the Managing Director of the foundation, Mr Art Van Den Beukei, said Safisana Foundation’s goal was to set up a Communal Services Blocks(CBS’s) to service the treatment plant.
The sanitation block, estimated to cost 25,000 euros would have basic toilet and drinking water services, shower and kiosk services all designed to meet the local need of the people.
Mr Beukei said the project also had a waste collection, processing and recycling unit which would help the executors of the project to provide better sanitation, reduce environmental and health hazard due to indiscriminate defecation in bushes and pools and also improve waste collection in the selected areas.
He stated that to be able to sustain the project, users would be made to pay minimal user fees to be used as capital for maintenance.
Mr Beukei explained that the project was a non-profit one, with Safisana acting as a business partner, financial counterpart and co-ordinator of local branches.
He gave an insight into how the systems of the project would work, saying that the processing plant would stimulate regular collection of the effluent from the service blocks for the production of organic fertiliser.
He said additional income would be generated by selling these products.
Mr Beukei disclosed that the foundation had discussed the need to supply the fertiliser to the Irrigation Development Authority (IDA) and distribution of the biogas to local industries in the Greater Accra Region.
Earlier in a presentation at a forum of representatives of the various groups and organisations in the Ashaiman community, the Programmes Officer of the Ashaiman office of Safisana Foundation, Mr Frederick Tettey-Lowor, took the participants through the technical details of the project.
The participants included assembly members, private operators, contractors, traditional authorities, persons with disabilities, religious groups, the youth, women groups, landlords, contractors and consultants.
Mr Tettey-Lowor explained that the various groups were included in the initial stage of the project to enable them to disseminate information to people in the communities and also build their capacity in readiness for the project.
He said the implementers would need the people to play various roles to facilitate the mobilisation of the communities and monitor project implementation.
Mr Tettey-Lowor said the Ashaiman Municipal Assembly had major roles to play, including the provision of legally documented land for the work.
An Urban Planner of the Training, Research and Networking for Development(TREND), an NGO engaged in the Tripartite Partnership Project(TPP) in the provision of improved sanitation and water supply service delivery to the urban poor, Mr Benedict Tuffuor, took participants through a Learning Alliance (LA) platform, which according to him was to promote active multi-stakeholder-community participation in project implementation, ownership, facilities operation, management and maintenance and urged participants to strengthen the sector capacity for planning and delivery of the services.
He said the NGO operated on the tripartite partnership of public, private and NGO sectors.