By Ebenezer Adeniyan
…continued from yesterday’s
After the terms of the concession contract between the Ondo State Government and ZL Global Alliance Ltd were reviewed, the government agreed to convert the company to a major PSP and carrier of public waste and start paying it a sum in the region of N30m (THIRTY MILLION NAIRA) every month for its public waste management.
This is a luxury of a privilege that was not extended to other smaller private participants (PSPs) who are to collect rates from residential waste. Unlike ZL Global Alliance Ltd that has access to government equipment, facilities and funds, the other PSPs have to use their own equipment and charge a regulated amount from residential building owners every month. They still have to pay annual fee to the government.
The fact that ZL Global Alliance Ltd collects huge amount of money from government every month while other PSPs have to struggle to remain in business without a bite of the apple, as most of the money they make goes to diesel for trucks and payment of workers, destabilised the waste management system.
In the last couple of years, some of the smaller PSPs have pulled out of the business, leaving people to push out more residential waste to public places for ZL Global Alliance Ltd to deal with. This led to many parts of Akure and major towns being underserviced.
It was gathered that when new operators applied to join the PSP scheme in the State, the State government had upgraded the requirements for granting of licence for operation and since such operators would not be paid by the government, they felt the investment was not worth it.
Meanwhile, on many occasions, officials of ZL Global Alliance Ltd were said to have blamed delay in monthly payment to the company by the government as part of the reasons public waste sometimes pile up for days before being evacuated. Leaving the waste unpacked, it was gathered, is often used to force the government into making payment.
Representatives of traders at Oja Oba in Akure and others were said to have told the government and the company to provide them with permanent waste trucks where they would be dumping their waste instead of dumping it by the side of the road for it to be evacuated. This request, they said, has not been answered by the company or the government.
The government has spent a lot of money on orientation to tell people to obey waste disposal laws in order to make the company’s job easier. However, the traders along Oba Adesida road said they are not being given the opportunity to obey those laws as the government or the company has refused to provide them where to dump their waste. The roadside, they said, becomes the only option when there are no provisions made by the government or the company.
This is just as hundreds of staff of the State Waste Management Authority have remained in the office with absolutely no work to do as majority of the budget of the Authority goes into funding of the concession contract. Shortage of fund, it was learnt, has made it difficult for them to carry out enforcement and monitoring duties.
CONCLUSION: MY TAKE
The waste management crisis in Ondo State today was a non-existent problem that arised from the decision of the government to concession the system. Under the public servant-run waste management system, Ondo State was one of the cleanest in the country.
The concession idea with the company was accepted by the government because of the promises made by the company to invest billions of naira into recycling, employ thousands of youth and make money for the government.
Buying into such good proposal was not a bad decision on the part of the government. However, what will be a bad decision on the part of the government is to refuse to change a system that has proved over the years to be unproductive.
Waste management should not be about cleaning the site when it’s dirty, it should be about not allowing the site to get dirty in the first instance. That’s why prevention is said to be better than cure.
Simply put, the current system is not working. It’s time for the government to amend its concession arrangement with ZL Global Alliance Ltd or cancel it and return the system to its old, effective status.
NOTE: Picture above shows another group of youth doing voluntary clearing of refuse at Oba Adesida road in March this year.
