N6bn investment, 25,000 jobs in danger as government, waste collectors tango

Indigenous waste collectors are not giving way to their foreign counterparts without a fight. The state government appears to be favouring one over the other as AKIN ADEWAKUN, CHUKWUMA OKPARAOCHA and BOLA BADMUS try to make sense of the whole waste drama in the State of Aquatic Splendour.

A waste disposal reform being pushed by the Lagos State Government is currently generating ripples between the government and the Private Sector Participation (PSP) operators.

The government is doing a recertification of the operators with a view to making them more responsive. But the operators feel the move, with the conditions attached, could send them out of business.

That the city of Lagos, alone, generates 13 metric tonnes of waste on a daily basis is no longer news, especially to those who are very conversant with the affairs of the city. Neither is it newsworthy, any longer, that the state is having a herculean task on its hands managing these wastes, generated by its estimated over 20 million population.

About two decades ago, when it was becoming apparent that the city was on the verge of being submerged by wastes and refuse, the idea of allowing private sector participation (PSP) in the management of waste in the state was mooted by the then administrator of the state, Brigadier General Buba Marwa (Rtd) and developed, over the years, by subsequent governments in the state.

Interestingly, while many believe this initiative and others have, today, made the city cleaner, not a few, including the state government, are, however, of the view that there is another need for a change in strategy, concerning the state’s approach to waste management, to enable it further achieve its dream of a healthier and cleaner city. For instance, at a meeting held with the operators on September 7, 2016, the state governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, had intimated them of the government’s intention to carry out reforms in the area of waste management in the state.

Highlights of the reforms

Some of the highlights of the reforms would see the state government, among others, outsource residential waste collection to foreign operators, providing an enabling law that would allow foreign investors coming into the business and recoup their investments, while restricting all existing PSP operators to only commercial waste collection.

Prior to this, commercial waste collection had been the exclusive preserve of the government. When eventually passed into law, therefore, the planned reforms simply indicate that residential waste collection will no longer be carried out by PSP operators, as it is presently being done.

Curiously, besides the government’s vote of no-confidence in the present PSP operators, not a few residents have also echoed same sentiments about the ability of the PSP operators to ensure a cleaner Lagos. And, while some have thrown their weight behind the planned reform in the sector, others however believe that any reform that would affect over N6billion local investment and threaten about 25,000 workforce, made up of Nigerians, must be handled with caution.

“Despite the in-roads purportedly made by the government in the area of waste management, the fact remains that waste management in the state still gives one a lot of concern”, Mrs Collins, who reside in Agbado Oke Odo Local Council Development Area of the state said. According to her, the PSP operators had not really made their presence felt in Olorunto, Raji Razak and the neighbouring communities where she lives.

“Hardly do you get to see them and when they eventually come, you would have to cover some distance before being able to dispose your refuse. They always park their trucks very far away”, she stated.

This petty trader is not alone; many residents of the city feel the same way. “Some of the trucks these people use are just too old for business. You always see them break down at every nook and corner of the city. It gives one the impression that they are not really ready for the business. Most of these areas are not covered and this becomes a huge problem because they are the only ones licensed to do dispose waste in residential areas for now. They actually gave the government the reason to act the way it did”, said Mrs Lawal, a second-hand fridge seller in Iyana Ipaja, during a chat with Saturday Tribune.

“For me, the only thing that is constant in life is change itself. I see no reason why one should fret about this. But I believe the new arrangement must have a way of protecting the local interests, since that is the only way we can really encourage a home-grown economy. It should not be a blanket thing. Let those operators that have the capacity to up their games and deliver be allowed to exist side by side with the foreign companies”, Mr Olu Adesua, a business man who lives in Balogun Area of Ikeja, said.

Government unfair to us-PSP operators

But the operators themselves are crying foul. They believe the proverbial dog is just being given a bad name in order to hang it, declaring that some of the challenges the operators are facing are government-induced. They complained of alleged government’s refusal to manage the dumpsites around the city effectively, a development, they argued, had hampered efficient service delivery on their part.

“Our trucks spend hours, sometimes days, waiting at dumpsites to dispose their contents. This, ordinarily, should not take more than one hour to do this, but because of the difficult terrain of these dumpsites. They are not being well-kept by the government”, argued Mr Olalekan Owojori of Wellbeck Consulting Ltd, the consultant to the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria. Besides, he added, it costs an average of N100,000 to remove a single truck stuck in any of the dumpsites around the city, without any compensation from the government.

Responding to some other claims by the government and the public, Owojori explained that the state government had not been supportive, of late, to members of the association. According to him, besides its failure to maintain the dumpsites in the city, the operators are no longer paid regularly the money the state government helps them collect from public institutions.

“The arrangement is that, under the Residential Waste Collection, the operators collect their money directly from the residents. In the Commercial Waste Collection, the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) engages the clients and contracts the operators to deliver the services and the revenue is shared on a 60-40 basis in favour of the operators. Unfortunately, sometimes we face close to five months delayed payments. So how do you expect a maximum performance from this?” he asked.

The consultant also alleged that the state government had, since September 2015, been making arbitrary cuts from the operators’ 60 per cent, sometimes leaving them with as little 33 per cent to run their operations. “Unfortunately, this is all happening when the cost of operation, including diesel, has increased by more than 300 per cent”, he added.

He dismissed government’s claim of operators being ill-equipped and not having enough operational trucks to service the whole of the city, insisting that the operators had, over the years, invested in over

1000 trucks, with about 750 still operational till today. While reiterating the operators’ readiness to work with whatever foreign company contracted, Owojori however cautioned the government to ensure that the local operators enjoy the same privileges as their foreign counterparts.

Alleged bias?

Curiously, investigations by Saturday Tribune revealed that the fears of the local operators may not be unfounded, after all. For instance, while the local operators were only given a five-year contract, which has since expired, and yet to be reviewed, the state government is ready to make it bigger and more enticing, with a ten-year contract, for the foreign companies that would be eventually contracted.

Besides, Saturday Tribune also learnt that, while the foreign companies would enjoy full government backing in the area of access to finance and government installations, the local businesses are being asked to fend for themselves.

“While former Governor Babatunde Fashola was there, there was this arrangement then between the operators, a local bank and the state government under which about 400 new trucks were acquired by the operators, with the state government standing as a guarantor. Though we paid the money back, but the acquisition of those new trucks went a long way in ensuring efficient service delivery. Why can’t we have such arrangement again? How come the state government is not even thinking along that line, except to throw about 350 local businesses away with this so-called reforms?”, argued a prominent player in the industry who would not want his name in print.

Interestingly, this may not be farther from the truth. Though the government is insisting that the intention is not to push the local investors out of business, the general belief is that if it insists on the new guidelines it set for recertification of existing operators, none will continue to exist after February 28, 2017, the time it had set for the submission of documentation for recertification.

“The new rules are rather stringent. It only gives the government away as trying to do away with local operators” argued another PSP operator who his office in Iyana Ipaja area of the city. For instance, some of the conditions majority of the operators may not be able to meet include government’s insistence on evidence of available financing/access to credit line and evidence of sufficient fleet for carrying out projects.

“How many of us have access to financing or credit line? Besides, the biggest operator in the system has about seven trucks and government is demanding for more, especially in this era of recession. By now, we should be knowing the real motive?”, argued another operator who also would not want his name in print for fear of being victimised.

But, while government is resolute about carrying out its reforms to the letter, the operators, Saturday Tribune learnt, may have no other option than to resort to legal actions; since attempts in the past to politically address the situation has failed. It was gathered that the operators initially opted for political solution when they approached a chieftain of the ruling party in the state, the All Progressives Congress (APC) to help intervene by appealing to the state government to shelve such plans that would see these operators, majority of them said to be card-carrying members of the party, out of business.

“But, with the state government still pushing on with the so-called reforms, despite assurances from this party chieftain, I think we are being left with no choice than to seek legal option”, argued the association’s consultant.

Reforms, not a witch-hunt-Government

In his reaction to the controversies, the Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Babatunde Adejare, assured that the proposal, which comes under a bill entitled: “A Bill for a Law to Provide for the Management, Protection and Sustainable Development of the Environment in Lagos State and for other Connected Purposes”, among other things, seeks to merge existing environment laws in the state

into one. He pointed out that the proposal will not send PSP operators out of business.

“LAWMA is the only authority by law to cart away wastes, not these licensees. They are contractors to LAWMA and they have a contract that expired in May/June, 2016. We also recognised that LAWMA, by using PSP, has done well in the past.

“But as it is today, about 80 people come into Lagos per hour, only 10 leave per hour. So, we have a retention of 70 per hour. Each person generates waste and the state now has about 26 million people. We are generating above 13 metric tonnes of waste per day”, Adejare said, noting that the government would, through the new policy, employ 27, 500 sanitation workers all over the state.

Similarly, Lagos State House of Assembly’s chairman, Committee on the Environment, Dayo Saka-Fafunmi, said the whole essence of the bill was to ensure a better living standard for an average Lagosian which, he said, was what everyone voted for. He also pointed out that the whole idea behind the proposal was not to kick local PSP operators out of business.

“The bill takes care of every need of the environment. What we are looking at is to ensure that we have a cleaner Lagos and a very beautiful environment and a way to do this is by bringing on board best practices from all over the world.

“The innovation in the bill has never been seen in any environmental law in Nigeria. Most of those who are apprehensive feel that we are bringing one person to be in charge. But the word, ‘concessionaire’, does not mean one person. Our PSP can all come as a subcontractor under a concessionaire agreement. We have been able to allay fears and assure all that the intendment of the government is to have a cleaner Lagos and an environment that with be friendly”, he said.

On the apprehension by PSP operators, the lawmaker said the government was not taking them off their jobs, but only giving them higher responsibility by allotting to them commercial areas. He said consortiums were Nigerians who wanted to invest in the business and thus engage many more of the.