The Mayor of Accra, Hon. Michael Kpakpo Allotey has urged traders to treat cleanliness as an everyday responsibility rather than an activity reserved for National Sanitation Day (NSD).

According to him, just as people wash plates after eating, traders have a responsibility to clean the spaces from which they conduct their businesses.

The Mayor said this at the Rawlings Park in Accra on Saturday, October 3, 2026 during the NSD exercise held in commemoration of World Clean-up Day 2026 under the global theme, “From Clean Plates to Clean Cities,” and Ghana’s complementary national theme, “National Sanitation Day: Local Actions Yielding National Impact.”

The Mayor noted that the objective of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) was not to prevent people from trading but to create conditions in which traders could conduct their businesses in clean and healthy surroundings.

Hon. Allotey said traders should be able to sell, make profits and take their earnings home rather than spend their income treating preventable illnesses associated with insanitary conditions.

He said he had observed improvements in the attitude of some traders, including instances where traders swept their surroundings during normal business hours, and encouraged them to sustain the practice.

The Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Hon. Mahama Ayariga disclosed plans to provide households with separate waste bins, replace open-bucket waste tricycles, and establish transfer stations across Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs).

Hon. Ayariga said that, under the policy direction aligned with President John Dramani Mahama’s directive to develop an effective and efficient waste management system starting at the household level, all MMDAs had been given 30 days to identify and submit one-acre sites for the construction of waste transfer stations.

He said the government was designing an integrated waste management system that would address deficiencies in the entire waste chain, from household collection through transfer stations to final disposal and recycling.

Captain Nii Kojo Nseni Mankattah IV, Asafoatse Onukpa of the Ga State, on behalf of the Ga Mantse, King Tackie Teiko Tsuru II, called on residents and traders to take greater responsibility for maintaining cleanliness after organised clean-up exercises.

He expressed concern that substantial resources were committed to sanitation exercises only for some cleaned areas to become littered again within hours and urged residents to discourage indiscriminate dumping and challenge people who littered public spaces to pick up their waste and dispose of it appropriately.

The exercise brought together officials of the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, traditional authorities, market women, youth groups, sanitation workers and other stakeholders.