President John Mahama has announced that the government is considering setting aside one day every month for a nationwide clean-up exercise, saying the current two-day national exercise is not enough to deal with the scale of sanitation challenges across the country.

The President made the remarks at Alajo in Accra after joining senior government officials to take part in and inspect the start of the two-day national clean-up exercise.

The exercise forms part of efforts to improve sanitation, clear drains and reduce the risk of flooding in vulnerable communities.

Speaking after participating in the exercise, President Mahama said the volume of work required to tackle poor sanitation and choked drains made it clear that a longer-term and more regular approach was needed.

“Two days are not enough to finish this work, but we are going to institute it so that at least one day every month all of us should come out and clean our surroundings,” he said.

The President said the proposal was rooted in values that have long been part of Ghanaian society, where communities took responsibility for maintaining clean environments. He suggested that urban life had weakened that sense of communal responsibility.

“That is what our traditional values were about. We are taught to keep a clean environment, but when we all leave our hometowns and come, because of the anonymity of urbanisation, we think that nobody watches us, so we dump those values and we live in filth,” he said.

President Mahama said that a change in public attitude would be necessary if sanitation efforts were to produce lasting results.

“We must change that attitude,” he said.

The President also indicated that the government was taking further steps to address flooding and drainage problems, especially in parts of Accra where blocked drains and silted streams continue to pose a threat during the rainy season.

He said the Minister of Finance had already released GH¢150 million to support flood mitigation efforts, including the dredging of streams and other drainage works.

“I’m also asking the Minister of Finance; he’s already released 150 million to help with flood mitigation, that is, the dredging of the streams and all that,” the President said.

According to him, the military will continue with aspects of the exercise even after the two-day clean-up exercise has ended.

“And so the military will continue that exercise, even after we have finished this two-day cleanup,” he added.