Govt targets 20,000 permanent jobs through waste management, circular economy — Ayariga

The government is targeting the creation of at least 20,000 permanent jobs through a planned overhaul of the country’s waste management and circular economy sectors, Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs Mahama Ayariga has disclosed.

The initiative forms part of a proposed nationwide sanitation management system that will integrate waste collection, recycling and waste-to-energy activities while creating employment opportunities, particularly for young people and women.

“We hope to create not less than 20,000 permanent jobs in waste management and the circular economy. I’m being very conservative here,” Mr Ayariga said.

Speaking at the Government Accountability Series on Monday, October 5, 2026, the minister said the programme would be backed by investments in waste collection vehicles and tricycles, household waste bins, transfer stations and engineered landfill sites.

He said the government was developing a comprehensive sanitation strategy aimed at establishing efficient waste management infrastructure across the country.

According to Mr Ayariga, Finance Minister Ato Forson was awaiting the full cost estimates for the construction of engineered landfill sites in all regional capitals, alongside waste transfer stations for every Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assembly (MMDA).

A key component of the proposed reforms is the replacement of existing open-bucket tricycles with self-loading and self-tipping vehicles.

Mr Ayariga said the change was expected to improve the nature of work in the sector and make it more accessible to women.

“I go to the transfer stations, and I stand there and observe, and every tricycle that comes there, the rider is a man. His helper is a man,” he said.

“And what we’re trying to do is to replace the existing open-bucket tricycles with self-loading and self-tipping tricycles. And we believe that those can be easily operated also by young girls.”

The minister, however, stressed that the proposed transformation was not intended to take away the livelihoods of people already engaged in waste collection and transportation.

“There are people already involved in using tricycles to convey the waste. There are people using trucks to convey the waste. We don’t want to displace them,” he said.

“We want to assure them that the new system that we’re going to operate will have them included.”

Mr Ayariga explained that the new sanitation model would also have a revenue-generating component, with income expected from household waste collection fees and companies engaged in recycling and waste-to-energy operations.

He said the government would take responsibility for the initial infrastructure investments but intended to recover the expenditure through the revenues generated from the system.

The planned reforms come amid efforts by the government to address persistent sanitation challenges, including the removal of accumulated waste at Abossey Okai.

Mr Ayariga said the exercise followed President John Dramani Mahama’s directive for sanitation issues to be tackled “head-on.”