Lagos govt adopts new strategy to tackle flooding

LAGOS State government has adopted a new strategy under the new solid waste management policy encapsulated in the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) to tackle flooding.

The state Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Babatunde Adejare, who stated this in Ikeja, at a news conference, said the state government had already perfected plans to implement flood prevention programme through all-year-round cleaning and maintenance of drainage infrastructure.

He said under the CLI, state-of-the-art equipment would be deployed towards cleaning the environment, while in addition to 27, 500 community sanitation workers that would be employed, mechanised street sweeping machinery would also be deployed to major highways across the state.

It will be recalled that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode had signed the new Environmental Management and Protection Law to give the new policy the legal teeth to function efficiently.

The state government also assembled a consortium of global leaders in waste management led by Visionscape to manage waste collection and disposal, using ultra-modern facilities while still empowering the Private Sector Participants (PSPs) to play key roles in the waste collection process.

Speaking further on the policy, Adejare said the initiative was in line with the vision of Ambode to make Lagos a clean, secure and more prosperous state with a robust economy built on service, equity and justice.

He added that the initiative had been designed to address the deficiencies in the solid waste management sector while state-of-the-art equipment would be deployed to protect the environment, human health and social living standards of residents.

Under the initiative, Adejare said the state government, in partnership with Visionscape, would provide a twice-weekly service with 600 new compactors and 900,000 electronically tracked bins while transfer loading stations in Agege, Oshodi and Simpson as well as waste depots in Mushin, Ogudu and Simpson, would be rehabilitated and transformed to world – class standards.

He said engineered sanitary landfills would also be constructed while over 40,000 new dignified jobs would be provided.

He added that the initiative would ultimately go a long way in protecting public health as well as local and global environment, aside improving the aesthetics of the state through significantly cleaner communities, roads and highways.