The Chairman of the Committee in Environment in the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Dayo Saka-Fafunmi, who spoke on waste management in the state on World Environment Day, added that managing waste is an expensive project.
Fafunmi, representing Ifako/Ijaiye Constituency 1 in the Assembly, speaks on this and other issues in this interview.
Today is World Environmental Day, what is the significance of the day
The significance of the day is to remind us of the importance of the environment and to further make us know about the world that we live. Environment is everything about nature and the nature is environment. Without you nature can exist independently, but human beings cannot exist without nature. We rely more on mother nature and our existence depends more on the environment.
How well has the government given attention to the environment in Lagos State
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has come up with measures to improve the state of the environment in Lagos State. Lagos is a state, where we have LASPARK that are responsible for parks and gardens, which takes care of the green area of the state. We have the tree planting exercise that has been going on for about 10 or 11 years to reduce the depletion of the ozone layer and give us a conducive environment, we also make efforts targeted at clearing the solid wastes that we generate and commercial wastes, hospital wastes, medical wastes are being cleared. The state has positioned itself in a way to have a balance in our environment so as to reduce the harsh effect, which the environment would have thrown back at us.
If you try to balance your ecosystem, throw away pet bottles that could block your drain channels, if you do things right to the environment it would treat you well. The policy of the state Governor with the support of the House is to the effect that it would allow private participation to come in. The primary responsibility of the government is to provide a conducive environment for businesses to thrive. Be it environment, transportation and what have you, every government policy comes in form of a reform, it is not that we are doing something new. Most times, we reform the existing policy, modify it with a view to meeting the intended objectives.
Flooding has been a major problem in the state, especially with the way people throw wastes inside drainages. How prepared is the state with a view to recycling its wastes as we gathered that about 20,000 metric tones of wastes are generated in the state daily
Before now, we never had the opportunity of doing recycling. When we were using Olusosun Dumpsite, we dumped everything together such as pets, papers and what have you. But with the new programme and policy in the state, the Transfer Loading Station and any other policy, what the government is trying to do is to engage private organizations to sort these wastes and convert them to wealth, and this is something that can generate foreign exchange.
We have seen several solutions, what I strongly believe is responsible for the problems we are seeing is because most of our canals have not been properly lined to discharge water easily into the lagoon. Even those who have been lined, people throw things like bad refrigerator and what have you there with the hope that the canal would wash them away. Eventually, when it gets into the lagoon, it would throw it back at the bank of the river to tell the people that they are dirty. When you look at all these, you would agree that it takes more than government policies to correct them.
The United States of America is not great just because the leadership is great, it is great because the people of America want it to be great. They work in conjunction with the policies and visions of the government of the country. How well are the followers working with the vision of our leaders. When you know that it is wrong to throw pet bottles on our drainages and you go ahead to do it, then what are you doing. You think everything would be done by the government, you pack your wastes from your house and throw them in the middle of the road. We as a people have not imbibed the culture of supporting our leaders. We believe that it is a democratic setting and that we could do anything and get away with it.
Lagos is a cosmopolitan state, population should be our advantage not a disadvantage. People keep coming to Lagos and they generate waste. The waste we generate is more than what they generate in New York City. How much do we have to manage our waste, what the city spends to clear its wastes is more than the entire budget of Lagos State. So, if we start comparing ourselves with those developed climes, we are not being fair to ourselves.
How well has the state government gone in sensitising the people about waste management
Sensitization is a collective responsibility, you and I know when we are doing something wrong. When we were in primary schools, we were told not to throw wastes on the streets.
I remember the then military government of General Muhammadu Buhari and the late General Tunde Idiagbon, that was when we had War Against Indiscipline and we later had MAMSER under the then General Ibrahim Babangida that were instilling discipline in people and mobilising support for government's policies.
Everybody believes that it is the responsibility of the government to regulate the economy, it is its responsibility to regulate the environment and that is where we are getting it wrong. To make this state clean again is a collective responsibility, let everyone of us play our roles. In doing that, we should control our wastes. There are some people, whatever wastes they generate at home, they put them in their cars and dump them on the roads, it has never been this bad. These are the things we should note.
Is there anything the government is doing to monitor human activities around our canals
What I know is that clearing of drainages and canals have been contracted to private companies. If they are having issues, it means the policy should be reviewed. When this is done, it is to know if we should continue with policy, review it or cancel it. Now, the policy of cleaning our environment is still relevant, but we need to modify it and make it work.
Are you satisfied with the activities of Visionscape despite the criticism by the Speaker of the House
Well, that is one area that I try to refrain myself from. The Speaker is the mouth piece of the House and he sees things differently from how I see it. He has a broader view, but I know that Visionscape has a commercial contract with the state government. The law that we passed recognises the use of concessionaire in waste management, but you would not mention any particular organisation, you don't make a law for a particular company. It could be any company that has the requisite capacity.
Our own is to come up with a regulatory framework and we carry out our own analysis, when we carry out our own oversight functions. If we look at the entire project and we believe that Visionscape has not done what they propose to do, we will look at the gap. There have been several contractual agreements between the company and the state government. But we should not make the mistake that was made in the past, when the then military government of Buhari came and cancelled the Metroline project of the Lagos State government then. They felt it was not necessary without thinking of the future and the state government had to pay for what it did not benefit from. It is only when a project has outlived its relevance that you can cancel it.
The general believe is that Visionscape has not done well and what is the way out for "Cleaner Lagos Initiative"
"Cleaner Lagos Initiative" is an initiative of the state Ministry of the Environment. But you have to set an agenda first, we formulated policy on how to manage solid waste in the state. We considered the existing PSP, but you don't change a winning team. Even if it is not doing well, you can modify it. We looked at several options and felt our PSP could work or come up with a concessionaire. If we have enough money to manage our wastes, we would not think of privatising the system because any right thinking government would want to provide an enabling environment for private sector to work.
When the project is going on, the implementation might have issue. When there is any problem, you go back to the drawing board and you look at the gap between the policy and the implementation. Talking about Visionscape, you see them working day and night. Since they don't have the capacity to clean the whole state, the PSP can work with them to achieve the quality objective. I am not in a position to say if they have done well or not because there are some things I don't know. I can only know them through oversight and I can call for papers. But I can say that, where we were three months ago is not where we are now.
The major problem was not the collection of wastes, but where do you put them when you collect them. We are a state that never had land fill sites, the reform provided for the provision of land fill sites in Epe, Badagry and all these cost a lot of money. When we have enough land fill sites, we will have the ability to manage our wastes. Imagine when we collect our wastes and all of us now face Epe. Olusosun Dumpsite has been closed down and the cost of managing wastes has increased. Now, the ministry and the committee are looking at options that could give us lasting solutions and this cost money. Like they do in Kenya, they have a plant where all wastes are managed. The hit would drive turbines and bring electricity, while the Co2 produces water. About three million homes are powered with the electricity. This costs about 40 or 50 million dollars, so waste management is an expensive project.
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