Stray animals delay Ho beautification project

Plans of the Department of Parks and Gardens to make Ho, a garden city is gradually becoming illusive.

Stray animals in the Volta Regional capital feed on the beautification plants and grasses, planted at roundabouts and road intersections.

The animals are sometimes seen in the afternoon moving in herds from one road intersection to the other destroying the decorative plants.

Surprisingly, the animals go to the road intersections only when beautification plants and grasses have been planted and not when the places are weedy.

Ms Janet Oboni, Regional Landscape Designer of the Department, described the situation as frustrating in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA).

“It is very frustrating to see the grasses and plants coming up nicely only for goats and other animals to destroy them the next morning,” she said.

Ms Oboni said some officers of the Department were assigned to keep watch over the intersections and roundabouts but it did not yield any positive results.

She also expressed worry that businesses and institutions erected signboards at the roundabouts, which destroyed plants and grasses, making the roundabouts unattractive.

Ms Oboni said lack of funds and personnel were inhibiting the Department’s efforts at making Ho a “model valley city of beauty”.

She appealed to the Ho Municipal Assembly to enforce its law on stray animals to help the Department to achieve its aim of making Ho a garden city.

Meanwhile, the Department raised a total of GH¢12,067.00 for the state through the sale of grass, plants, wreaths and the maintenance of compounds of private and public institutions in the year 2012.

Between January and June this year, it made GH¢4, 006.00 and hopes to meet its target of GH¢13,140.00 for the year.

Source: GNA