In the event that he is re-elected and takes office in 2025, former president John Dramani Mahama has declared his intention to dissolve the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources.
On April 4, 2024, Mahama gave a public speech at the Wisconsin International University College in Accra. Despite the ministry’s existence, he expressed unhappiness with its efficacy, noting growing levels of filth throughout the nation.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) flagbearer, Mahama, highlighted the need for lower government spending and questioned the ministry’s purpose, saying that Ghana looked dirtier now than it did before the ministry was established.
“We will close down the Ministry of Sanitation, one to reduce expenditure and two, I don’t see any use. Accra, our country is dirtier than when there was no Ministry of Sanitation.
“Indeed, this country was cleaner when our country was under local government than as a stand-alone ministry and so we’ll close down that ministry and we’ll take the sanitation schedule back to local government, because we want to reduce government expenditure,” he said.
Mahama proposed consolidating several other underperforming ministries, including the Aviation and Railways Ministries, into the Transport Ministry.
“It is not only the Sanitation Ministry, in Transport, Aviation and Railways, we are going to close them down and send them back to the Transport Ministry. We are going to combine Communications and Information again. So, we want to reduce the number of ministries.
“With cleanliness, we think that it’s the duty of the district assemblies. Every assembly has an obligation to make sure that its district is clean and so we must decentralise sanitation to the district level,” he added.