President John Dramani Mahama will on Saturday, September 6, relaunch the National Sanitation Day (NSD) initiative under the Clean-up Ghana Agenda, renewing the call for nationwide participation in the fight against filth.
The programme, which first began in 2014, is being reintroduced after more than a decade to place Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) at the heart of enforcing sanitation policies.
Ahead of the launch, Minister of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim, instructed all Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to immediately clean up public spaces, ceremonial streets, and choked drains.
“As the supervising authority, I direct all MMDAs to ensure that all public spaces and visible nuisances within your jurisdiction are cleared by 8:00 a.m. daily, beginning September 4, 2025,” he emphasized at a press briefing in Accra. He further warned that MMDCEs who fail to enforce sanitation by-laws risk losing their positions.
The event was attended by Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture John Dumelo, Members of Parliament, MMDCEs within the Greater Accra Region, and stakeholders in sanitation and environmental management.
The NSD, introduced in 2014 during Mahama’s first tenure, designated the last Saturday of every month for nationwide clean-up exercises but was abandoned after 2016. Under the current Reset Ghana Agenda, the initiative is being revived to restore discipline in public spaces, strengthen local government structures, and encourage citizen participation in sanitation management.
According to Mr. Ibrahim, the reintroduction marks “a defining moment in our national journey towards environmental sanctity and a test of our seriousness, our commitment to public health, and our sense of pride as a people.”
He announced that the first six months will serve as a performance benchmark for assemblies, which must progressively shorten the time frame for waste removal. “By the end of this period, assemblies must demonstrate that unsightly scenes of filth are eliminated. Your performance as Chief Executive will be judged on the cleanliness of your cities and towns,” he stressed.
Mr. Ibrahim also urged assemblies to mobilize their environmental health officers, waste management teams, private service providers, and community volunteers to sustain compliance. He reminded them that the government has already released 80 percent of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) to ensure they have the resources to carry out sanitation responsibilities.
“With this support, districts now have no excuse to neglect their duty to keep towns and cities clean,” he said. He further revealed that a sanitation hotline is being introduced to allow citizens to directly report nuisances to the ministry, while assemblies will be required to submit monthly sanitation reports to their Regional Coordinating Councils for onward submission to the ministry.
