The MP said “it is time such mentality of Zoomlion workers would come and clean our streets because government had engaged them to sweep be stopped to ensure environmental cleanness”.

Mrs Morrison gave the advice when she addressed residents of Agona Swedru after a five hour National Sanitation Day clean-up exercise at Swedru in the Agona West Municipality of the Central Region.

The residents cleaned choked gutters, weeded public places and swept streets of the Agona Swedru Central market, near Dwenho, a community of Agona Swedru.

Officers and men of the Ghana Police Service led by Agona Swedru Divisional Commander, Chief Superintendent Samuel Yankey, Ghana National Fire Service Officers, Zoomlion Workers, Environmental Health and Sanitation officials participated in the exercise.

Assembly members, youth organizations, members of various Churches, traditional rulers, market women, staffs of the Agona West Municipal Assembly and voluntary Organizations also participated.

According to the MP it was better for the citizenry to have attitudinal change towards sanitation in order to avert outbreak of cholera and other diseases.

She said Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies have entered contractual agreements with Waste Management Companies to clean the streets, but it was a wrongful notion for people to continue to dump refuse indiscriminately.

The MP cautioned stop owners to desist from building concrete blocks on the edge of the gutters in front of their shops which turn to chock the gutters and made it difficult to clean.

She tasked the youth organizations to embark on programmes to educate school children on the need to keep their environment clean and to continue to throw empty iced water bags or sachets and other rubbish about indiscriminately.

She stated that the continuing education would go a long way to help create awareness for people to desist from the habits of dumping refuse in the gutters and other public places.

Mr George Freeman, Agona West Municipal Environmental and Sanitation Chief, said sanitation issue was shared responsibility of  the citizenry, adding that it was not proper for individuals to put the  blame at the door steps of the Assembly alone.

He said the Agona West Municipal had embarked on an aggressive programme to ensure that it emerged as the neatest Assembly in the Central region in this year’s sanitation competition being organized by Regional Coordinating Council (RCC).

Mr Freeman said the indicators for the Assembly to win the competition needed collective efforts from all and sundry, adding that the Assembly alone could not perform the role as perceived by some people.

The Environmental Chief debunked assertions that clean-up exercises had become outmoded because the Assemblies have engaged waste Management Companies to collect refuse.