The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), Maame Efua Houadjeto, has called on Ghanaians to take ownership of the country’s coastline as the GTA launches a major Clean the Beach Campaign across Accra and surrounding coastal communities.
Speaking at the launch of the initiative dubbed ‘The Blue Ghana Initiative: Protecting Our Beaches. Preserving Our Future’, Maame Houadjeto said the campaign is a direct response to the country’s growing waste and flooding challenges.
“Our beaches are not just tourist attractions. They are the face we show the world and an inheritance we owe future generations. Every piece of plastic that chokes a drain in Accra has the potential to end up on our shores.
We cannot continue to treat our environment as someone else’s responsibility. Cleaning our beaches and keeping them clean is a national duty that belongs to all of us,” she said.
The launch comes weeks after Accra experienced one of its heaviest single-day rainfalls on June 29, 2026.
Communities including Alajo, Circle, Kaneshie, Odawna, Tse Addo, and Weija were severely affected, with lives lost, properties destroyed and hundreds displaced. Disaster management agencies linked the flooding to indiscriminate dumping of refuse into drains and waterways.
Environmental experts have warned that waste discarded into drains eventually washes into rivers and onto the coast, polluting beaches, endangering marine life and threatening livelihoods that depend on the sea.
