Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) of some 15 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Accra are attending a three-day training workshop to build their capacity on air quality monitoring. This is to help the officers to monitor air censuses placed in their respective assembly areas to collect data and analysis them to assist in their planning to solve air pollution issues. The workshop, organised by Ghana Urban Air Quality Project and led by Professor Kofi Amegah of the University of Cape Coast, was to undertake the data component of a two-year Breath Accra Project to mount low-cost air census in some parts of Accra. The project is being sponsored by the Clean Air Fund and working in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In October 2022, the Chief Executives of the 15 MMDAs made a commitment to implement the air quality project in their respective areas and the training of the EHOs in the local assemblies form part of the processes. Prof Amegah in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said what the project sought to do was to bridge the air quality data gaps in Accra, adding that; ‘There is limited monitoring going on and due to that there is lack of data on air pollution level in the city.’ ‘So, the first thing is to have hipper local air pollution data in Accra where we are going to deploy a number of low-cost censuses, which would be interspersed with monitors so that, we can have real time high pollution data for Accra,’ he stated. He said EPA has some Air Quality Management Plan, but its implementation was a problem, stating that, ‘it has not been implemented over years since it was developed because of lack of capacity. ‘If we really want to implement the plan to the letter then that implementation needs to happen at the assemblies. ‘So, what we want to do as part of this project is that we want to build the capacity of the assemblies in air quality monitoring so that they can take charge in addressing air pollution problems in their areas. That is the essence of the training,’ Prof Amegah stated. He said this would go a long way for air pollution issues to become central at the assemblies and, ‘if we are able to achieve that then of course the sky in Accra would be exceptionally clean. He added: ‘In recent times you heard of the story or in the news about Accra being one of the polluted cities in Africa, so such an endeavour would go to clean the air in Accra.’ Mr Desmond C. Appiah, Country Lead – Ghana for Clean Air Fund said having access to clean air was a human right, which was declared by the United Nations, and that it would not happen automatically. ‘We have to understand the causes, the current status of air quality so, we can then know the decisions that can be taken to ensure that the air becomes cleaner,’ he said, adding that; ‘In the past few days everybody is talking about the quality of air. ‘We are excited because at least it is bringing the issues to the fore. It is making people more aware. EPA is doing what it has to do and supporting this project. This project is going to help us collect more information about the quality of air.’ He said the training would be undertaken in series and that was the first one which focused on the data that would be collected by the census and analysis to understand what it means Mr Emmanuel K.E. Appoh, the Managing Consultant of Environfn Consult, said currently air monitoring has become a topical issue because about seven million people were dying annually worldwide. ‘In Ghana about 28,000 people are dying annually for breathing poor air and from the African perspective children are more vulnerable, especially children under five years about 400,000 of them die annually in Sub-Saharan Africa,’ he stated. Mr Appoh said according to the World Bank Analysis Report the economic cost of poor air was huge, and that in the entire world it cost about 450 million US dollars while in Ghana it was about 2.5 billion US dollars. ‘It is a huge cost to government because the GDP value of that amount is about 4.2 per cent. This cost has been assessed based on health outcomes of hospital attendance – medication, loss of man-hours, and productivity. ‘This amount of money could be used for the construction of roads and other serious things, if we have taken good care of the air we breathe,’ saying that there was the need to monitor the air, especially the dust which forms the particles that we breath.
Source: Ghana News Agency