Members of the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria (AWAN) have begged
\nthe Lagos State House of Assembly to protect their investments in state\u2019s
\nCleaner Lagos Initiative.<\/p>\n
The executive bill is entitled: \u201cBill for Law to Provide for the
\nManagement, Protection and Sustainable Development of the Environment in
\nLagos State and for other Connected Purposes\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
Though, public hearing on the bill is ongoing, the protesting waste
\nmanagers said about 2,500 people might lose their means of livelihood if
\nthe new sanitation policy scales through the House.<\/p>\n
They carried placards with inscription such as \u201cLagos Ministry of the
\nEnvironment wants to cede our services to\u00a0 foreign firms\u2019\u2019, \u201cMonopoly!
\nWetin we fit do self\u201d, and \u201cInequitable! 80 per cent to Oyinbo, 20 per
\ncent to Lagosians not Acceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Spokesman for the group, Mr Taju Ekemode, told newsmen that with the new
\ngovernment policy, which ceded evacuation of 80 per cent of wastes in
\nLagos to foreign investors, their investment would be destroyed.<\/p>\n
Ekemode, the Vice Chairman of AWAN, said: \u201cWhere are here today to let the
\nlawmakers know our feelings, what we suffer and what we may suffer with
\nthe Cleaner Lagos Initiative of the current executive. We have been doing
\nthis job well over years, and there have been no problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government plan to organise foreign firms to come and clean Lagos is
\nabsurd; we cannot agree to that. We are not against reform in any way, but
\nthe reform should be around the current Private Sector Participation
\n(PSP); that is what we are saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe policy directing us to leave the streets, to allow foreign firms to
\ntakes, over will kill businesses. Where do we put those trucks? We can\u2019t
\nuse them to carry sand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose trucks cannot be used for any other things apart from wastes. What
\ndo we do with our investments? What do we do to the loans we got from
\nbanks?\u2019\u2019 he asked.<\/p>\n
He noted that Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode directed that PSP should be cleaning
\ncommercial places.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the percentage of commercial centre in Lagos is just about 20
\ncompared to what is being ceded to foreign investment.\u201d
\nAccording to him, many PSP operators collected loans from banks which they
\nare still servicing.<\/p>\n
He added that many Lagos residents owed PSP operators much debts, and that
\nareas allocated to them would be inadequate for the about 350 operators.<\/p>\n
He urged the House to ensure that reform should be around the existing
\noperations.<\/p>\n
The state government had said that the initiative became imperative due to
\nchallenges inherent in the environmental laws of the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Members of the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria (AWAN) have begged the Lagos State House of Assembly to protect their investments in state\u2019s Cleaner Lagos Initiative. The executive bill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n