The Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) has commenced the collection of data in Tema Community 12 as a pilot for the Tema-Aarhus waste water project.

A delegation from the TMA, and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in 2019 signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the city of Arhus in Denmark for the Urban Water Management project in Tema.

Mr Frank Asante, Tema Metropolitan Public Relations Officer told the Ghana News Agency that the project which was borne out of a sister-city relationship between the two port and industrial cities was aimed at creating efficient and sustainable water management in Tema through the promotion of open exchange, and corporation for solutions for urban water management, sustainable water supply, waste water treatment and solid waste management.

Mr Asante noted that though the project would cover the entire metropolis including; Tema West Municipality, it was using community 12 as a pilot community before scaling it up to other communities within the catchment area.

He said before the commencement of the data collection, a team from the Assembly held a community engagement with residents to explain the tenets of the project and its intended benefits to them.

He explained that the TMA was hoping to tap into the rich experiences of Aarhus, adding that the Denmark city has one of the efficient waste water management system, which would be beneficiary to Tema especially now that the harbor cum industrial city was having challenges with its central sewer system.

He said it would provide them with the best ways of treating households and industrial waste and effluents before discharging into the environment and water bodies.

The PRO gave the assurance that the data collection team of the Assembly could easily be identified by the residents with their identity cards, therefore residents should cooperate with them to enable the assembly get the needed data for the project and future projections.

Mr Buckman Oppong, TMA's Ground Data Collection Team Leader, on his part told the GNA that within the next three weeks they would use mobile data collection smart devices to pick geo-locations of each facilities together with their attributes in the pilot community.

Mr Oppong explained that the attributes of the facilities they would be collecting included; manhole location, types of structures, its depth, covering type and connection attachment among others.

He added that after the collection, segregation of the data would be done to get those that were connected to the central sewer system and those using septic tanks.