The Accra Metropolitan Assembly says it was unable to rid the city of mentally ill persons because of lack of funds to carry out that exercise. Speaking to the GNA, the Public Relations Officer of the AMA, Mr John Appiah, said the exercise could not come off because the Ghana@50 Secretariat which had promised to provide some ¢800,000 million for a cleanup and the exercise to rid the city of lunatics failed to do so. Prior to the climax of the 50th anniversary celebrations on March 6, the city authority promised Accra residents that it would embark on an exercise to rid the city of the mentally ill on the streets. However, a one month after the celebrations, the exercise is still on the drawing board. Mr Appiah said a committee comprising AMA, Ministry of Health and Department of Social Welfare was set up by the government to be responsible for the exercise but since the funds were not available, there was not much the committee could do. Mr Appiah said if the exercise had taken place, the lunatics would have been taken to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital and the funds used for their maintenance such as clothing, medicine and feeding. He said as of now, the AMA did not have money for such an operation and added that if the Ministry of Finance would give them money for the exercise, it would be carried out. The Public Affairs Officer of Ghana@50 Secretariat, Mr Henry Okyne said before the celebrations, the Secretariat gave AMA nine billion cedis for sanitization exercises, which included the confinement of the mentally ill on the streets of Accra. It was therefore unable to allocate more money for that exercise, he said. Source: GNA