Following the completion of a meeting involving all the Executive Chairmen and Chairpersons of the 57 Local Government (LGs) and Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in Lagos State, the operators of the Private Sector Participation (PSP) have been reinstated to commence waste collection on Lagos streets.
This is following months of settling the dispute between the operators of PSP, the government and the managers of newly implemented Visionscape/Cleaner Lagos Initiative.
In the meeting held at the Ministry of the Environment, Ikeja, Lagos Mainland, and chaired by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment, Mr David Hunpe, under the directives of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, all PSP operators on the Lagos Mainland and across the State were reinstated and urged to immediately return to their various coverage areas of operation.
Meanwhile, there were certain conditions attached to the reinstatement and proposed return of PSP operators to their previous coverage areas.
The conditions include the PSP operators taking care of domestic waste with zero cost to the members of public. This includes waste from living premises, institutions such as schools, hospitals excluding medical waste while the major roads will be handled by Vision scape group.
In addition, PSP operators will be solely in charge of commercial waste collection with service charges paid by consumers to PSP operators.
Also, Visionscape/CLI are to pay PSP operators for refuse collected from domestic premises to dump site after 15 days with one-year contract agreement and to be reviewed after a year onward.
Furthermore, all printing press locations across Somolu and other parts of the State have been identified as commercial premises and as such, must pay adequate charges to PSP operators directly.
Moreso, the Environmental Services Department across LGs/LCDAs have been instructed to monitor the activities of these waste collectors and report to the Ministry on a weekly basis. The LG administrators are also urged to meet regularly with the waste collectors in order to know their needs or challenges in their operations.