Lagos waste management crisis: Operators seek Ambode’s intervention

IF the threats by the private waste disposal operators in Lagos State, under the aegis of Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria, is anything to go by, possible reappearance of heaps of refuse on the highways and streets is imminent.

Already, the signs are there as many neighbourhoods and streets are filled with heaps of refuse, waiting for evacuation.

Calling on the Lagos Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode to wade into the current crisis, the association’s chairman, Mr Olabode Coker, listed three major areas that required urgent attention to include delay at the various dumpsites; non-registration of about 126 original operators that were allegedly supplanted by bringing close to 50 non-operators from outside, and the proposed engineering land-fill site that said would take two years to be actualised.

According to Coker, many of the operators stay for two or three days before they would be able to dispose refuse, a situation he said is not in the best interest of either the operators, government, or the general public.

“Apart from the privitisation of dumpsites to private firms, where each operator is required to pay N2,000 per truck before dumping their refuse, these firms insist on collecting N4,000, which we grudgingly pay.

“Grudgingly in the sense that there is no improvement in the services being rendered by these firms. They were even telling us that government is owing them. But the truth of the matter is that these private firms lack the required resources that can facilitate seamless operations at the various dumpsites”, he said.