Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in Ghana, are being engaged on a project that would formalize businesses, particularly the medium and small scale enterprises in electronic waste management. The project christened E-MAGIN Ghana, is funded by the European Union and is part of the SWITCH Africa Green Programme (Phase II) of the European Union, and is aimed at improving the management of e-waste towards a Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) through an integrated multi-stakeholder approach. As a deliberate approach towards realizing this goal, managers of the project are exploring innovative ways to formalize businesses in the sector.
A project lead, Prof Rosemond Boohene shared with Skyy News that there exist some critical issues stipulated in the Hazardous and Electronic Waste Control and Management Act, 2016 (Act 917), that ought to be address. She explained that knowledge in these legal provisions is limited, and as such there could be little progress towards ensuring an effective and sustainable management of electronic waste.
“When you come out with a law, rule or regulation, you should be able to monitor to make sure that people are adhering to those rules and regulations, and you will be able to monitor if those actors are formalized. You get to know where they are..but most of the businesses in this sector are micro, small enterprises and they are operating in the informal sector.
“So if the government comes out with an Act with its accompanying L.I, and it says everybody should do A,B, C… because they are not formalised, we don’t even know where they are, to make sure that they are adhering to it,” she explained.
A Senior Program Officer with the Environmental Protection Authority, Hakim Seidu recounts that, there has been quiet some progress with the project and implementation of the law. He added that capacities have been built among industry players through the E-MAGIN project, and that they aspire to escalate the impact.
“..they lead the way. They let these scrap dealers etc, know what the EPA requires. Its not been just a one way thing but they also get our information out there that when we come for the inspection, this is what we want to see, this is the management practice that we want you to adopt, if you want to export it, these are the procedures you ought to follow and many others.”