The governor of Lagos State, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode and the and the House of Assembly are on a collision course as the latter has ordered private waste collectors in all the 20 local governments and 37 local council development areas of the state to resume refuse collection and disposal with immediate effect.
Speaker of the House, Mr. Mudashiru Obasa who gave the order at the plenary on Thursday also directed the ministry of finance not to remit any money to Visionscape which supplanted the private refuse collectors.
It would be recalled that Ambode had disengaged the private waste collector concessionaires following the contract signed with Visionscape Sanitation Solution Limited.
“We are calling on the 20 local governments and 37 LCDAs in the state to have meetings with the PSP operators to go back to work and they should start paying them and make the residents to start paying the operators. We have to avoid epidemics and be proactive.”
“The law of Lagos State provides that any contract to be awarded by the Executive must pass through the Assembly, but in the case of Visionscape contract, it is unknown to us.
“We insist that we don’t know anything about Visionscape because we were not consulted before they started work,
“We once wrote the commissioner for finance, Hon. Akinyemi Ashade not to pay Visionscape again and he should return any money he paid to them after our instruction to the coffers of the state government. We will go to that when the time comes, but we have to do the needful now.
“There is the need for PSP operators to be re-absorbed into the system as Visionscape has not managed Lagos waste properly, said Obasa.
The speaker also ordered the clerk of the House, Mr. Azeez Sanni, to invite the commissioner for the environment, Mr. Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti to appear before the House on the matter next week.
“We are inviting the commissioner for the environment to come and report to us within one week. The clerk should write all the local councils in the state to do the needful and the Commissioner for the Environment should work on this and report to us in a week,” Obasa said.
