Lagos Assembly orders immediate return of PSP, disowns Visionscape

The Lagos State House of Assembly has ordered the 20 Local Governments and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in the state to call on the Private Sector Partnership (PSP) operators in their areas to go back to refuse packing job with immediate effect.

Speaker of the House, Rt. Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, who gave this directive on Thursday on behalf of the lawmakers during plenary also ordered the Clerk of the House, Mr. Azeez Sanni to invite the Commissioner for Environment, Hon. Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti to appear before the House on the matter next week.

This followed an Urgent Matter of Public Importance raised by Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu (Eti-Osa Constituency 1) on heaps of refuse scattered all over the state.

Speaker Mudasiru Obasa emphasised that the Lagos State Government does not know about Visionscape.

Obasa stated that there are three arms of government including legislative, executive and judiciary and that the state government ought to have consulted the House on Visionscape before they started operation.

“We insist that we don’t know anything about Visionscape because we were not consulted before they started work.

“We once wrote the Commissioner for Finance, Hon. Akinyemi Ashade not to pay Visionscape again and he would return any money he paid to them after our instruction to the coffers of the state government. We will go to that when the time comes but we have to do the needful now.

“We are calling on the 20 local governments and 37 LCDAs in the state to have meetings with the PSP operators to go back to work and they should start paying them and make the residents to start paying the operators. We have to avoid epidemics and be proactive,” he said.

The Speaker also warned those stopping people from dumping refuse at the dumpsites to desist from doing so, adding that he saw a lot of refuse trucks in a bad state and that some of them have been abandoned.

He insisted that the House ought to have approved the new refuse disposal policy of the state governnent before Visionscape started work.

“We are inviting the Commissioner for the Environment to come and report to us within one week. The Clerk should write all the local councils in the state to do the needful and the Commissioner for the Environment should work on this and report to us in a week,” he said.

Hon. Gbolahan Yishawu had said that there were several heaps of refuse on Lagos roads, adding that they were not like before “because some PSP are now working and the state government has bought some trucks.”

He said: “Some refuse are taken to Epe and Ikorodu but it is a bit far now as 300 instead of 800 trucks now dispose refuse.

“We used to dump the refuse in Olusosun, but the place was gutted by fire. We can give the place to private companies.

“The sanitary land fill in Epe is not being utilised and the transfer loading stations too are not working effectively and the turn around time of packing the refuse is not being utilised.

“It is not all the PSP operators that are working.May be we can recall the PSP Operators and reopen Olusosun and the land fill sites should be operated properly.”

The Majority Leader of the House, Hon. Sanai Agunbiade from Ikorodu Constituency 1 revealed that heaps of refuse are worse in his area, and that for the state to have good sanitation, a law on environmental sanitation was passed in Lagos State, but that it seemed it was not properly done after that.

“The refuse on the road and on the streets are hazardous to the people. Flies from the refuse mix with the food people are eating.

“One day, Olusosun would not be able to accommodate refuse any longer. It would be better if we can change our policy on refuse disposal.

“I will suggest that we should challenge those in the Ministry of Health and those in the Ministry of the Environment.

“We can invite the people in the Ministry of the Environment to know their challenges. This has become an eyesore in Lagos State. We should invite the people in charge,” he said.

Also speaking, Hon. Bisi Yusuff from Alimosho Constituency 1 revealed that eight people died in Igando, where they dump refuse in his area.

Yusuff stressed that Visionscape does not know the job, and that they did not even allow PSP operators to help the people.

“There are big rats on the roads now and they could even make a vehicle to stumble.

“We should look at it critically. They are not picking any refuse in the state. It is an important matter that should be handled urgently,” he said.

In his comment, Hon. Abiodun Tobun from Epe Constitueny 1 stated that Lagos State is dirty and that only God would help the state.

He stated that Epe is not benefitting from the system and that their water has been contaminated and that all their roads are now bad.

“There is no industrial estate in Epe, but they have in other places. “They cannot bring refuse dump to Epe, they can relocate it if that is what we are benefiting. We want better things in Epe such as industries and other things,” he said.

Hon. Noheem Adams from Eti Osa Constituency 1 said that there are refuse in many places in his area.

He stated that in the days of PSP, people knew when they would pack their refuse outside. We should invite both the commissioner and LAWMA officials as well as the local government. We should be able to do our best because we need the people’s vote now.

This was corroborated by other lawmakers such as Hon. Oluyinka Ogundimu from Agege Constituency 2, Hon. Saka Solaja (Ikorodu Constituency 2), the Deputy Speaker, Hon. Wasiu Eshinlokun-Sanni (Lagos Island 1), the Chief Whip, Hon. Rotimi Abiru (Shomolu 1) and Hon. Abdulsobur Olayiwola (Mushin Constituency

Adebola Shabi: Cleaner Lagos Initiative Aimed to Reduce Waste Pollution

Adebola Shabi, the Special Adviser Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Cleaner Lagos Initiative, on Friday said the aim of the initiative was to reduce waste pollution in the state.

Shabi made the disclosure at the sensitisation programme on: “Proper Waste Disposal Adherence to Environmental Laws,” organised by Badagry Local Government and the CLI in Badagry, Lagos State.

He said the CLI idea was to invite experts who would be able to manage the waste in order to have good waste management system in the state.

He said: “What we had before was a situation in which Private Sector Participant operators collected waste from the residents and dumped it.

“It is now the responsibility of the Lagos State Government to manage it.

“When you dump waste in a dump site without proper management, it becomes hazardous to people’s health.”

Shabi said the Olusosun dump site was shut down because of public health, safety and environmental degradation it had caused in the past years.

He said: “We have reopened Abule-Egba dump site temporarily, pending the time engineered Landfill site will be ready in Epe.

“There is a plan to build other landfills in Badagry and Ikorodu.

“With the coming up of the Epe sanitary landfill, all dumpsites such as the one in the city centre, which are major sources of air and underground water pollution, have been closed to refuse disposal.”

Shabi commended the residents of the coastal town for maintaining a clean environment.

According to him: “This is the only town visited by our team that we did not find waste in your streets.”

In his remarks, Olusegun Onilude, the Chairman, Badagry Local Government, commended the state government for the initiative.

The chairman, represented by Kamorudeen Ajape, the Secretary to the council, said the initiative had impacted greatly on people of the town.

Onilude said a clean environment would result to a healthy society.

People from different communities in Badagry, including the young, old, market women and men attended the programme.

Solid waste reform will improve the socio-economic conditions of Lagos residents - Dr. Babatunde Adejare

Solid waste reform will improve the socio-economic conditions of Lagos residents - Dr. Babatunde Adejare

AgegePule Magazine

The Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare has said that the ongoing reform in solid waste management, tagged: “The Cleaner Lagos” initiative,will contribute to the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of the residents of Lagos State by tackling the problems of poverty and unemployment.

Adejare, who on Monday at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre, Alausa, during the 2017 Annual Ministerial Press Briefing in commemoration of the second year in office of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, stated that the Solid Waste Management (SWM) sector had been identified as critical to the realization of the vision of the current administration to position Lagos as a clean, healthy and livable State.

He stated that the sector, therefore, required urgent attention to bring it to the required level of international standard as its current situation, which had necessitated the reform of the entire solid waste management sector, clearly did not align with the Lagos State Government’s future vision.

“Current realities in this sector reveal deficiencies across the entire process chain, from insufficient collection services to inadequate transportation methods and abysmal disposal practices that are not only wasteful in terms of resource utilization but also injurious to environmental and public health”, he said.

The Commissioner recalled that Lagos State, in its 50years of existence, had grown exponentially in population thereby impacting on solid waste management and sanitation as a whole, adding that at present the daily waste generation in the State officially stood at 13,000 metric tonnes.

According to Adejare, by devolving the provision of Solid Waste Management services to the private sector, the CLI will birth a new financially viable and technology-driven sub-sector to the Lagos economy, creating new businesses and job opportunities that can be emulated by other Stateswithin the country.

His words: “These reforms are all encapsulated under the ‘Cleaner Lagos Initiative’ (CLI) with a broad strategy of creating an environment for the private sector to harness international best practice in this vital area of infrastructure.

“The CLI aims to protect the environment, human health and social living standards of Lagos residents by addressing the lacunae in the existing legislation and refocusing the scope of LAWMA to enable the agency enforce, regulate and generate revenue from the waste management process”.

“The components of the Cleaner Lagos Initiative include Residential Waste Collection and Processing, Commercial & Industrial Waste Collection, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Drainage Maintenance, Provision of Engineered Sanitary Landfill , Manual Street Sweeping, Mechanised Street Sweeping, Provision of Transfer Loading Stations(TLS), Material Recovery Facilities(MRF) and Marine Waste Collection”, he added.

The Commissioner maintained that under the CLI, waste generated by the commercial sector would be handled by licensed waste management operators while an environmental consortium would provide waste collection processing and disposal services for residential properties.

Speaking on the de-flooding activities of the State Government, the Environment Commissioner noted that over 10.8million people have benefited from the de-flooding programme through completion of 21 drainage construction and 14 drainage dredging projects across the State.

He stated that to achieve this feat, the Lagos State Government constructed 12.99 km length of drainage channels in 17 LGAs/LCDAs, dredged 22.250 km length of primary channel across the State and made provision for 16 new drainage projects.