•We recently sacked some PSP operators for poor performance —LAWMA •Says agency is rolling out 80,000 smart bins, 500 tricycle compactors soon
FOR some residents of Lagos, all is not well as far as waste management within the metropolis is concerned. Besides being compelled to pay, as seen in the recent 100 per cent increase in waste bills across the state, the quality of service being rendered by PSP operators leaves much to be desired.
From Ijaiye to Abule-Egba, Alakuko, Meiran, Adura, Agbado Kollington, Jankara, Lambe, Olaniyi, Puposola, U-Turn, Ahmadiyya, Berkley Estate, Fagba, Iju-Ishaga Powerline axis and many others, the story is the same. People are increasingly tired of being made to pay for a service they never enjoyed. While a slight upward review of the bill could be justified, a 100 per cent increase in fees without commensurate services or offerings is like adding insult to injury.
Expressing displeasure over the sudden increment, residents are mounting pressure on the government, especially at the third tier, the local government, to come to their aid. Sadly, nothing seems to be coming out of such pleas.
They claimed to have lost sleep since they received the notice of the price adjustment, which became effective from September.
Sadly, within the last three years, a resident, Mr. Wande Ojo, said the refuse collectors had increased their tariffs twice and now by 100 per cent or more.
“For example, a two- or three-bedroom apartment in Agbado Ijaiye is now being charged N3,000 per month and a small shop N1,750 monthly.
“The charges in July 2022 for the same apartments were half of the current charges,” he said.
Saturday Tribune investigations revealed that the majority of residents in the axis are low-income earners, with many households surviving on average incomes of less than the N70,000 minimum wage monthly.
Condemning the increment in its entirety, some residents argued that the operators would perhaps have been justified if they had also upped the ante in terms of the services being provided.
“Honestly, if we had our way, we would not be patronising these people because we see what is happening now as extortion. And we believe it is happening because they enjoy government support,” said a resident of Olorunto Street in Oke Odo Local Council Development Area, Shola.
The major grouse of the 39-year-old father of three is that, despite coming to his street occasionally, the PSP trucks never get to his end of the street.
“They will tell us that the road leading to our own end of the street is bad and not motorable, and as a result, their trucks will not be able to get there. So we have to walk to where they park, which is quite a distance, to empty our waste. But what it means is that whenever we are not in, we won’t be able to do this despite these incessant reviews of bills. But the question is: if they are complaining of bad roads, whose job is it to make those facilities motorable?” Shola asked rhetorically.
He, therefore, called for a way of accommodating those outlawed individuals who previously used wheelbarrows to remove waste from communities, since they could penetrate the nooks and crannies of any area.
Another resident stated that they were being forced to patronise the PSP operators by the state government, following the failure of local government councils to perform their constitutional roles.
He accused the refuse collectors of playing tricks on them by collecting two months’ tariffs at a go with the first month serving as arrears and the second month being upfront payment for services yet to be rendered.
They noted that, sadly, those companies would not wait till the end of the first month before demanding payment receipts for both months.
“You are on your own if you are unable to produce payment evidence. If such evidence is not displayed conspicuously on the gate or wall of your house, your waste will not be taken away,” another aggrieved resident, who gave his name simply as Joseph, pointed out.
Just like others who had complained to Saturday Tribune earlier, Joseph also alleged that most times, the refuse collectors come only twice monthly, when the refuse would have littered everywhere.
He described the sharp increment as an act of wickedness on the part of the government for giving approval despite the current economic hardship being faced by everyone.
Joseph said it had been very difficult for him and other residents to settle their old bills as at when due, particularly in recent times when some have lost their jobs and private business owners are recording dwindling incomes.
Other residents, who spoke on the matter, argued that while inflation is real in the country, with the Naira losing value daily, such development should not warrant waste collectors passing on the whole burden to their customers just because they enjoy state government support, adding that the companies were making enough profit to enable them to adjust.
They further submitted that the operators’ current operational costs should ordinarily find accommodation within their profit margins, pointing out that another way the service providers could get by without loading problems on their customers was to engage in the sale of waste to end users or recycle them to make more money.
Another reason they are vehemently against the increment, they argued, is that the volume of waste being generated now is much lower, since the economic hardship the average Nigerian is experiencing has punched a gaping hole in their pockets, reducing the volume of purchases and waste output.
Unlike the operators, residents also claimed many of them are on fixed incomes and, as a result, have no means of raising additional funds to meet the new tariffs.
They described as unfortunate the way private companies providing public services in the country continue to “milk” the people, particularly the downtrodden, just because they enjoy government support.
They claimed it had become a fact that the moment any individual or company secures a franchise from government at any level to provide one service or another to the public, such opportunity becomes an avenue to exploit the people.
They contended that this assumption accounted for why PSP operators and other public service providers, who sometimes bill people for services allegedly not rendered, should be compelled to make their financial records public from inception to date.
Interestingly, most residents come under Community Development Associations (CDAs) or Community Development Committees (CDCs) to mount pressure on the government, especially at the local government level. But sadly, what they receive is a threat instead of their issues being addressed by that tier of government supposedly closest to the people.
A community leader, who wanted to remain anonymous because of alleged threats, revealed that the local government chairman of his area boldly told their CDAs and CDCs that “there is no going back on the new tariff.”
“The chairman even threatened to suspend activities of any CDA or CDC that further raises objections to the increment.
“And since the matter has gone to that level, we keep our mouths shut as we have no option but to continue to pay for services we are not enjoying,” the community leader told Saturday Tribune.
Some of the residents want refuse collectors to stop seeing tariff hikes as their only priority without improving service delivery.
Price increment, they argued, cannot be the only solution to the economic crisis, including the high cost of vehicle spare parts and diesel, which they always give as excuses.
“They should be thinking outside the box because the type of service they render is an essential one. If they have this mindset, they will always come up with policies that will be favourable to both parties, the operators and their customers.
“They should not go the way of those in the power sector, where a certain number of hours was promised to some customers, who were then made to pay for it, but were never given the service at the end of the day.
“After successfully putting people on Band ‘A’ tariff class on the basis that they shall enjoy light for at least 20 hours daily, some of the customers ended up paying for services they never enjoyed.
“So, they should reverse to the old tariff and also improve their services, as each of them has hundreds of thousands of households they ‘exploit’,” they stated.
The residents, therefore, called on Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to wade into the matter, describing the increment in refuse collection fees as an “additional heavy financial burden on the people of the state, especially the downtrodden.”
In his response, the Managing Director, Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, pointed out that despite these protests from residents regarding “atrocious” bills, the state government still subsidises refuse collection in low-income neighbourhoods across the state.
To support this, he said the state government is already reviewing the existing environmental and waste management law.
“That’s going to go through the normal stakeholder engagement process at the House of Assembly, where everyone will be able to contribute. We need to seek out, as a state, not just the government but every single stakeholder, to agree that it is not okay to dump waste just anywhere in Lagos,” he said.
By properly reviewing the law and involving everyone, he said, there would be a new social contract.
According to him, the state government will still have to subsidise services in many areas, adding that in areas where people are ready to pay, they will get good service.
“So we just have to fix that system. Those who are paying will subsidise those who may not be able to pay,” he said.
The LAWMA boss pointed out that the biggest issue right now with waste management in the state has to do with infrastructure.
“When I talk about infrastructure, I’m talking about the equipment and facilities that we use to collect, transport, treat and dispose of over 13,000 tonnes of waste.
“That infrastructure includes the whole logistics chain. Waste management begins with containerisation at the household, business or industry. Waste must be put in a closed container, whether it’s a bag or a bin, which gives us time to arrange and collect it. But when you dump waste on the roadside or behind your house, people will start doing what? They will start peeing on such waste, and the attendant smell is always obnoxious, sickening in most cases. And then you have a situation where people say the waste is not contained. We don’t have enough bins,” he said.
He disclosed that the authority is rolling out 80,000 smart bins to households, as is done in developed communities, noting that more bins will still be needed.
Secondly, he said the authority also needed transportation infrastructure.
“Right now, we have compacted trucks as a standard. But we’ve now realised that compacted trucks cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution in a heavily populated city like Lagos because there are some narrow roads they cannot access,” he said.
To fill the gap, the authority, he disclosed, is introducing a tricycle compactor model, a small truck that can take about 2.5 tonnes of waste on a pay-as-you-go basis.
“When that comes, residents can pay as they go. Meaning that you don’t have to pay monthly. When you have waste, once your bag is filled, you pay the tricycle compactor operator. So we’re going to introduce that.
“And the tricycle compactor will now drop such waste at the mobile station as well as in-station. That’s the new standard. We’re expecting 500 tricycle compactors by the middle of next year,” the LAWMA managing director said.
Right now, he said, the agency has 102 trucks that it works with every day and is planning to acquire more.
Gbadegesin also disclosed that contracts of some PSP operators were terminated recently by the authority due to poor performance. He assured that the authority would increase its monitoring of PSP operators.
This, no doubt, must be soothing to the ears of those aggrieved residents and LAWMA customers who believe they are being exploited by the day. Their only prayer is that the wait will not be too long before they start seeing these beautiful initiatives of the government coming into fruition.
Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).
