Many private waste collectors are inefficient, incapable —Oyo govt

OYO State commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Mr Isaac Ishola, has said that the recent decision of the state government to terminate contract with private waste collectors was towards ensuring that only contractors with the capacity for effective waste collection were engaged.
He explained that the state government observed that many private waste contractors were inefficient and incapable, resulting in challenges in efficient solid waste management in the state.
According to Ishola, the state boasted of many illegal private waste collectors who because they cannot access government’s dumpsite, continued to dump waste at illegal locations, and flout the state’s solid waste and management regulations.
He noted that the state government had commissioned WestAfricaEng to ascertain the capability of private waste collectors with a bid to having accurate data and engaging only those with the required capability.
“Some of them do not have the capacity and capability to do the work. Some of them do not comply with our regulations for example, we tell them that their waste collection vehicles should be painted in our colours and they do not carry their waste such that they litter the road, which they did not comply with.”
“We have so many illegal PSPs and the illegal ones drop their waste on the express because they can’t have access to our dumpsite. They collect money from people and do not drop it at the appropriate place. We don’t have good record of how many of them are on ground because many of them are not registered and get money from people.”
“We want to engage people who have capacity and ability to perform. We intend to reconsider some of them but we have to censor them to knowing their capability. We have our solid waste and management regulations and we have accurate data of our PSPs. Government will not politicize the issue of environment.”
“They even have two factions known as old and new PSPs but we deal with only one PSP. They shouldn’t politicize this issue. Many of them do not have the capacity and this is affecting solid waste management in the state. We want to restructure and engage only people who have the capacity to work and are committed to making the environment clean.”
“Then we employed WestAfricaEng to restructure PSPs, and look at them for capacity. Therefore they must show evidence that they are capable,” Ishola said.