Members of the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria (AWAN) have begged
the Lagos State House of Assembly to protect their investments in state’s
Cleaner Lagos Initiative.
The executive bill is entitled: “Bill for Law to Provide for the
Management, Protection and Sustainable Development of the Environment in
Lagos State and for other Connected Purposes’’.
Though, public hearing on the bill is ongoing, the protesting waste
managers said about 2,500 people might lose their means of livelihood if
the new sanitation policy scales through the House.
They carried placards with inscription such as “Lagos Ministry of the
Environment wants to cede our services to foreign firms’’, “Monopoly!
Wetin we fit do self”, and “Inequitable! 80 per cent to Oyinbo, 20 per
cent to Lagosians not Acceptable”.
Spokesman for the group, Mr Taju Ekemode, told newsmen that with the new
government policy, which ceded evacuation of 80 per cent of wastes in
Lagos to foreign investors, their investment would be destroyed.
Ekemode, the Vice Chairman of AWAN, said: “Where are here today to let the
lawmakers know our feelings, what we suffer and what we may suffer with
the Cleaner Lagos Initiative of the current executive. We have been doing
this job well over years, and there have been no problems.
“The government plan to organise foreign firms to come and clean Lagos is
absurd; we cannot agree to that. We are not against reform in any way, but
the reform should be around the current Private Sector Participation
(PSP); that is what we are saying.
“The policy directing us to leave the streets, to allow foreign firms to
takes, over will kill businesses. Where do we put those trucks? We can’t
use them to carry sand.
“Those trucks cannot be used for any other things apart from wastes. What
do we do with our investments? What do we do to the loans we got from
banks?’’ he asked.
He noted that Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode directed that PSP should be cleaning
commercial places.
“But the percentage of commercial centre in Lagos is just about 20
compared to what is being ceded to foreign investment.”
According to him, many PSP operators collected loans from banks which they
are still servicing.
He added that many Lagos residents owed PSP operators much debts, and that
areas allocated to them would be inadequate for the about 350 operators.
He urged the House to ensure that reform should be around the existing
operations.
The state government had said that the initiative became imperative due to
challenges inherent in the environmental laws of the state.