The Paramount Chief of the Wenchi Traditional Area, Osagyefo Ampem Anye Amoampong Tabrako III, has urged inhabitants of Wenchi to ensure a clean and healthy environment wherever they find themselves to help reduce out-patient department (OPD) attendance at health facilities in the area.

According to him, every individual has a role to play in keeping the environment clean at all times to prevent diseases such as malaria and typhoid fever, which are a drain on the nation’s scarce resources.

He, therefore, urged especially women, the agents of change in society and homes, to lead the crusade against filth in Wenchi to help achieve a clean and healthy environment.

Osagyefo Tabrako made the call at a maiden clean-up exercise to commence a campaign to keep Wenchi clean and make the inhabitants healthy.

The Wenchi Traditional Council, with the help of the Wenchi Municipal Assembly, organised the clean-up exercise under the theme “Clean Wenchi 24”.

The Paramount Chief and hundreds of his people, supported by Zoomlion Ghana Limited and the Ghana National Fire Service, cleared weed, desilted choked gutters, and swept the central business district and other principal streets to make the environment clean.

Osagyefo Tabrako commended the people for their massive turnout and assured them of effective collaboration with the municipal assembly and other stakeholders to sustain the exercise to rid Wenchi of filth and unsanitary conditions.

“The Wenchi Traditional Council and the Wenchi Municipal Assembly will soon revise the sanitation by-laws to make them applicable in this new dispensation to be biting enough,” he promised.

The Member of Parliament for Wenchi Constituency, Alhaji Haruna Seidu, said his outfit will sustain partisanship with the traditional council and the Wenchi Municipal Assembly to improve sanitation and hygiene in the area.

He encouraged Zoomlion Ghana Limited to adequately provide waste bins at vantage points to help make Wenchi clean.

On his part, the Wenchi Municipal Chief Executive, Alexander Obour Damoah, applauded the Paramount Chief for the initiative, urging residents of the municipality to dispose of waste responsibly to achieve a clean Wenchi.

“The Assembly will spare no stone in enforcing by-laws on sanitation and will do everything possible to ensure that the town is clean," he noted.

Notable people who participated in the clean-up exercise include the Presiding Member of Wenchi Municipal Assembly, James Kwasi Oduro Asare, Chief Executive Officer of PMC Africa Limited and Radio West Africa, Alhaji Abdalla Ahmed Abdalla, otherwise known as Alhaji PMC, and the Wenchi Municipal Police Commander, ASP Nana Boakye Yiadom.