The Lagos State House of Assembly has ordered the Local Governments and Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in the state to recall the Private Sector Partnership (PSP) operators in their areas to immediately take up refuse collection.
Speaker of the House, Mudashiru Obasa, gave this order during plenary and also ordered the Clerk of the House, Mr. Azeez Sanni to invite the Commissioner for the Environment, Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti to appear before the House on the matter next week.
This action of the Speaker followed an urgent matter of public importance raised by Gbolahan Yishawu, representing Eti-Osa II Constituency on heaps of refuse scattered all over the state.
Yishawu said the Lagos State Government did not know about Visionscape, noting that there were three arms of government; legislative, executive and judiciary, he said the state government ought to have consulted the House on Visionscape before they started operation.
“We once wrote the Commissioner for Finance, Akinyemi Ashade not to pay Visionscape again and that 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,” the law marker said.
He however, noted that “Some refuse are taken to Epe and Ikorodu but it is a bit far now as 300 instead of 800 trucks now dispose refuse.
“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.”
The speaker warned those stopping people from dumping refuse at the dump sites to desist from doing so, saying that “I saw a lot of refuse trucks in a bad state and that some of them have been abandoned.”
He stressed that the House ought to have approved the new refuse disposal policy of the state government before Visionscape started work.
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The Majority Leader of the House, Sanai Agunbiade from Ikorodu Constituency 1 told the House that heaps of refuse littered his area. He drew the attention of the house to fact that there was a law on environmental sanitation in the state to promote good sanitation, but lamented that it seemed the law was not being properly implemented.
According to him, there was need to challenge those in the Ministry of Health and those in the Ministry of the Environment and that the Commissioner for the Environment be invited to know the challenges facing the Ministry so as to verify their challenges.
In his contribution, Bisi Yusuff from Alimosho Constituency 1 said that eight people died in Igando, where they dumped refuse in his area.
He said that Visionscape was not competent, and yet they did not allow PSP operators to help the people.
According to him, there were “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.”
Also, Abiodun Tobun from Epe Constituency I stated that Lagos State is dirty and that only God would help the state, adding that Epe was not benefiting from the system as their water had been contaminated and roads now bad.
