The State Waste Management Board has blamed the difficulty in arresting indiscriminate dumping of refuse in major towns and cities of the state on the outright refusal of some residents to key into the Private Sector Participants (PSP) project for regular home collection of their waste.
The Executive Chairman of the Board, Honourable Emmanuel Chinye, stated this on Tuesday at the commencement of the Board’s Operation Show Your PSP Receipt in Asaba.
Chinye, who was represented by the Director of Operations, Mr Michael Esegba, said the residents in question either personally turned every available space and streets around them to dump sites, or engaged the services of wheel barrow pushers to dispose of the waste for them.
He maintained that these acts not only ran foul of the extant environmental laws of the state, but also complicating issues for the Board in its determination to keep the state clean.
The DSWMB Chairman clarified that the operation was not meant to witch – hunt anyone, but to compel those who had vowed not to register with the PSPs to do so.
Chinye said the enforcement exercise would be continuous until a reasonable level of compliance was achieved and advised those concerned to voluntarily register with the PSPs in their zones and maintain good waste bins to facilitate the clearing of their waste.
He stated that the Board was closely monitoring the operations of the PSPs to ensure they were at their best, stressing that those not living up to expectations would always be made to improve on their performance or have their operational permit withdrawn.
The Operation Show Your Receipt, which took the enforcement team to DLA road, Ogboeke Square, the Ogbeogonogo axis of Nnebisi road, Ibusa road, among others, was joined by the PSPs, whose responsibility it was to identify the defaulting individual and corporate clients for prosecution.
Over 20 defaulters, both individual and corporate, were arraigned before a Mobile Court and accordingly sentenced, while 5 were discharged.
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