Public Health Officers of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) have arrested Nuru Musah driver of a septic pumper truck with registration number GX 3726-18 belonging to A & D Waste Company, for allegedly dislodging untreated effluents pumped from his vehicle into the Odaw river.
The driver was apprehended during the early hours of Monday after he was captured in a video footage by some concerned citizens dislodging the contents of his septic truck believed to be untreated effluent into the Odaw river over the weekend.
Confirming the arrest Mr Gilbert Ankrah, Head of Public Affairs at the AMA said officers from the Metropolitan Public Health Department (MPHD) led by Joseph Asitanga and Ishmael Tagoe in the early hours of Monday managed to apprehend the owner of the company who assisted in arresting the driver.
He disclosed that the driver was currently in police custody pending court today.
He noted that it was an offence under the AMA Sanitation bye-laws to “indiscriminately dump solid and liquid waste in open spaces, drains, gutters, behind walls, or bums solid waste in one’s compound, adding that a person who contravenes this Bye-law “commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine, not more than one hundred penalty units or a term of imprisonment of not less than thirty days and not more than six months or to both; and in case of a continuing offence, is liable to a fine of not more than one penalty unit for each day that the offence continues.”
He pointed out that the City of Accra currently had excess capacity to treat liquid waste adding that wastewater generated in the city was treated by the Mudor Treatment Plant and other waste treatment facilities in the city.
He said the environmental effects of discharging sewage indiscriminately into the drains were enormous and cautioned would-be offenders to desist from the practice to avoid the wrath of the Assembly.