The Managing Director/CEO of Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Mr Ibrahim Odumboni, has called on residents in the state to support efforts of the authority to rid the environment of filth, by paying their waste bills promptly.
Odumboni, who made this known to newsmen on Tuesday in Lagos, said payment for waste services was very crucial to achieving the state’s vision of establishing a cleaner and livable environment, adding that no one is exempted from paying waste bills, regardless of occupation or societal status.
According to him, “We want to appeal to all residents in the state, to make it a duty to pay their waste bills. This is very important because the operations of service providers rely heavily on people paying for waste services. As a matter of fact, nobody is exempted from this, including civil servants”.
“For the sake of emphasis, there is no section of the civil service rule that exempts government workers from paying for services rendered by PSP operators. This applies to every other profession. We must take responsibility for the change we want to see in our environment. Anyone caught dumping indiscriminately under the guise of belonging to a particular profession, would be made to face the wrath of the law”, he said.
The LAWMA boss reiterated the Authority’s commitment to ensuring that every part of the metropolis was properly sanitised, adding that the agency had stepped up efforts to rid the environment of waste backlogs, through intensive morning and night operations.
He further stated, “We deploy thousands of sweepers, and waste collection trucks daily, across major routes in the city, as well as ensure that waste generated by tenements is taken care of, by PSP operators. We want to assure Lagosians that we will not relent on our efforts to make the environment cleaner and healthier for all”.
Odumboni said the authority was also working with other sister agencies, such as Neighbourhood Watch and Motor Vehicle Administration Agency (MVAA), to check waste migration, a situation where some residents move wastes generated at home in their vehicles, and dump while transiting to another point.
Speaking further, he called on the populace to embrace the culture of recycling and waste sorting from source, which apart from saving the environment from plastic pollution, had numerous economic benefits.
He admonished residents to always bag and containerise their waste, while waiting for the arrival of assigned PSP operators, adding that the practice of waste containerisation would eventually help curb littering and indiscriminate refuse disposal around the city.
President of the Nigeria Trade and Investment Centre, Canada, Femi Boyede, encouraged members of the Diaspora to consider clustering for project partnership, pointing out that this would have more impact than concentrating on just remittances.
Mr Omololu Duyile, Managing Director of Riyden Farms, an agribusiness, expressed hope that the African Development Bank would build the capacity of Nigerian entrepreneurs and better connect them to the global market.
Mrs Lola Visser-Mabogunje, an advisor on stakeholder engagement to the president of the African Development Bank, said the sessions helped increase stakeholders’ awareness and understanding of the bank’s operations in Nigeria and beyond.
Other participants urged the bank to promote the benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area and to extend financial support and training more effectively to women, small and medium enterprises and smallholder farmers.
They posited that this would enable them to take advantage of the bank’s Special Agriculture Processing Zones (SAPZ) initiative.
In a statement, the Bank said the African Development Bank anchors its current Nigeria strategy on two pillars: supporting infrastructure development, and promoting social inclusion through agribusiness and skills development.
The bank believes there are numerous opportunities for the youth and women from its financing and non-lending activities.
The bank’s current portfolio in Nigeria comprises 53 operations with a total value of $4.5 billion, made up of 30 sovereign operations, with a value of $2.7 billion, and representing 60 per cent of total commitments.
In addition, there are 22 non-sovereign operations valued at $1.8 billion in terms of mapping to the African Development Bank’s High 5 strategic priorities, projects that will ‘Industrialise Africa’ account for 42 per cent of the portfolio. Projects that will ‘Improve the Quality of Life for the people of Africa’ make up 25 per cent of the portfolio.
The other three strategic priorities are: ‘Light up and Power Africa’, ‘Feed Africa’ and ‘Integrate Africa’ representing 14 per cent, 10 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively.
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