Residents Lament L AW M A P S P’s Po or Op eration, As Cart Pushers B ecome Alternative
RESIDENTS
have lamented poor services been rendered by Lagos State Waste Management Agency’s ( LAWMA) Private Sector Partnership ( PSP) operators, maintaining that the operatives are more interested in billing than carting away waste.
As a result, many residents have been forced to patronise cart pushers for waste disposal as PSP operators often do not show up weekly, and sometimes, in a month.
For instance, residents of Egbe- Idimu and the PSP Operator for the area, Aisaoo Nigeria Limited, have been at loggerhead for sometimes now.
This is because the residents said after failing to pick their waste weekly, and sometimes, not showing up for weeks, the PSP Operator demanded they should be paid for services that were not rendered, which the residents maintained was not possible.
A resident, Mr. Ukpon Bassey, said
PSP/ LAWMA was introduced to the community four years ago.
“Some members forced the service on us despite the failure of PSP to honour the agreement reached with the community. They agreed to visit the community for waste collection twice or thrice a week. At a time, nobody saw them until last month when they showed up with fictitious bills to be paid within three days and threatening to seal our premises if we failed to pay their bills.
“The question on ground is that their bills are baseless because they have not been carrying our waste for the period under review and we cannot pay for services not rendered, I equally told him this to his face.
“Again, all that interests him is to increase his tariff at will, as at now, he is charging # 1,500.00/ flat. In our last meeting with him, he agreed to be coming to evacuate waste in our community twice in a month. Is that decision the best?” Bassey asked.
Another resident, Abiodun Fanoro, stated that when the firm started the waste evacuation about four years ago, it agreed to come twice a week, but the agreement was not respected.
“The once a week did not last for two months, as he suddenly disappeared and did not come for months. When he returned after six months, he claimed his only truck broke down.
“For the period he was away, bills were coming. Upon return, he changed it to twice a month. Even at that, there were occasions he came only once a month just as there were months he did not come.
“This poor service has made the community to solely depend on cart pushers. Yet he has unilaterally increased the tariff from N500 to N1,200 per flat for services not rendered. If we failed to use cart pushers there will be outbreak of epidemic if wastes are stored at home for weeks/ months.”
Fanoro stated that neither the LCDA nor LAWMA, on whose back he is riding to extort, as well as threaten, to lock out apartments want to see reasons with them.
“As it is today, the firm is sabotaging/ undermining Lagos environmental sanitation law just as its services pose serious danger to the community’ s health by coming to evacuate waste only twice a month, at times, once or not showing up at all. As a result, the community has no confidence in it to discharge this important service,” Fanoro stated.
Other residents in the area, who also spoke with The Guardian, complained bitterly about the poor service of the PSP operator, saying after his failure to show up as at when due, and they patronising cart pushers, who were paid, they cannot be double taxed by paying the PSP operator for service not rendered.
But it seems not only residents of Egbe- Idimu that are suffering the poor services, as residents of Mazamaza, Aboru, Okota, Abesan, Sanya and Festac Extension, to mention a few, also claim that the PSP Operators on many occasions do not show up weekly.
A resident of Mazamaza, Philip Benjamin, said he observed that the truck being deployed by the PSP Operator does not have the capacity to take the waste for the community, as most times, the truck does not go round, because midway into the community, it would be full to the brims, thus, necessitating the truck to leave.
“If the operator shows up, it is not all the streets do the PSP truck drive into for residents to empty their dirt, on many occasions he does not show up weekly.”
Tobi Awodipe, who stays off Okota Road, in Isolo, said PSP operators, sometimes, come once or twice in a month and by the time they show up, refuse would have piled up.
“They are more interested in money and not what they are supposed to do. There was a period they were coming once in two to three months claiming their truck had issues. But they wanted to be paid for all those months they did not show up,” she stated.
Another resident of Okota area, Tayo Oredola, said PSP operators don’t come to her street, probably, because it is not a major road, even though a street adjacent to hers, Akiti Street, an operator goes there to pick refuse.
“We patronise cart pushers to help take away our trash,” she stated.
Also speaking, the Chairman of
MOMIKOAM CDA, 1st ViceChairman, CDC, Egbe/ Idimu LCDA and Chairman,
Egbe/ Idimu CDC
Committee on PSP Operators, Mr. Ajibesin Nafiu, said, “the first coming of the PSP to our community was a disaster on both sides as they were highly owed by tenants, who claimed poor service delivery.
“But the second time coming was highly defined as the LAWMA was involved and the PSP Operator came to personally had talk with the tenants and it’s agreed they will come once in every week, that’s four times in a month while residents were to pay # 750.00 naira per flat.
“Consecutively, for one year, the PSP never defaulted. If they failed to come on Friday, they will come on Saturday or the following Monday with a prior knowledge/ information to the residents.
“Immediately after the year service, the PSP increased their rates owing to economic challenges and problems encountered at the dump sites. We had a meeting with the operator to start the increment in the third month of the year. The increment was 50 per cent that’s # 1250.00 naira per flat a month.
“I think this increment made some residents to pull out of the system at the time while others continue to patronise the operator.”
Responding to the residents’ allegations, the Chief Executive Officer of Aisaoo Nigeria Limited, Mr. Olakunle, said that there was no iota of truth in the claims of the residents, saying he only agreed to be visiting the community once, which he has kept in the last three years.
He maintained that there is no place in Lagos where PSP operators pick refuse from communities twice.
“We have our evidence of work done over the years. If anybody has any reason, he should be able to challenge us in court.” He added that he has evidence to show that in the last three years he has been picking the community’s refuse weekly. According to him, anyone that is not satisfied and feel cheated with the bills served should approach the court as he was ready to present his evidence to counter the allegations.