He said the naked persons on the street gathering rubbish are even better than those well-dressed individuals whose behaviours cause nuisance to the environment.

As to what he is doing in terms of sanitation when it comes to the Central Region to help the re-set agenda, he noted that he was the first to point out he was going to reward Assemblies that kept their places clean.

“I said so because if we are resetting, if you do not do that you are not going to get schools and hospitals, the funds you would have been using to address issues related to illness would have gone to development. And many of the Assemblies are cooperating; that is why I think places like Kasoa and Cape Coast are key in ensuring that we have clean communities”.

The Minister who was speaking at the sideline of the ongoing public hearing by the Local Government and Rural Development Committee for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDAs) in parliament said the issue of sanitation has now become a moral issue and people who are sane must be seen to be doing the right thing to keep the environment clean.

“I said look, I think we would have to expand the scope; what about those who sit in their cars and throw away rubbish into the street. How do they find expression in the mental health bill? When we say those who are naked in the street are mental, we are getting it wrong; we have a lot of us who are in properly dressed suits who are ‘sicker’ mentally than those naked who gather rubbish and throw them away”.

Again, just like the illegal mining menace, we are not going anywhere if we do not clear this off our mind. “The legacy I want to leave is my personal being, my ability to go down there to effect changes, lay a solid foundation for the future generation.

It might not be big but there should be indelible mark there that someone was here and wanted to see the central region clean; wanted to see galamsay free region; wanted to see people in apprenticeship and people who would go into skill training, it does not matter the number of schools you have attended.

What we need to do as a people is to go back to skill training; that is what would make this country grow, he added.