2nd May, 2016
Kazeem Ugbodaga
Commissioner for the Environment, Dr. Babatunde Adejare disclosed this at the monthly meeting of the Community Development Committees and Neighbourhood Watch outfit, organize by the Ministry of Local Government and Community Affairs held in Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
Adejare charged the CDCs to educate residents in their domain to patronize the PSP and desist from dumping refuse in drainage channels and patronizing car pushers, saying that, residents must ensure that their environment were kept clean at all times.
Adejare, who was represented by a Director in the Ministry of the Environment, Mr. Stephen Adeniji disclosed that overtime; the PSP operators had encountered challenges, such as high cost of maintenance of operational vehicles, low compliance to service, high cost of diesel to operate vehicles and low income due to defaulting tenements.
“The Lagos State Waste Management Authority is currently educating the Community Development Associations, CDAs and the general public on government polices on solid waste management.
“The PSP also encounter other challenges, such as bad road network, narrow streets in some communities, low suspension of electricity cables in some areas and operations in riverine areas,” he said.
Special Adviser to the Governor on Community and Communications, Kehinde Bamigbetan advocated the setting up of CDA Patrol Unit to monitor activities in their domains and ensure that residents patronize the PSP operators.
“The patrol units should be able to know the houses not patronizing the PSP operators and know where residents of such houses dump their wastes or refuse,” he said.
Bamigbetan also charged the Neighbourhood Watchers at the grassroots level to ensure that they know people living within their domains and the type of jobs they do so as to prevent crime in their areas.
According to him, CDCs and CDAs must be involved in project executions in their communities as government had pledged to give more power to the grassroots community, saying that the community leaders, through monitoring ongoing projects in their areas would be able to tell the government when they were not satisfied with the progress of the work.
Bamigbetan disclosed that his office had proposed to the government on the need to establish community radio for proper dissemination of information at the grassroots level and where the community people could tell government their expectations.