By Sarah NEGEDU
The Abuja Environmental Protection Board, AEPB, has decried the wanton movement of waste from border communities of Nasarawa state to the outskirts of the FCT, where huge resources are spent in evacuating them.
The Acting Director of AEPB, Dr Hassan Abubakar, said huge amount of waste coming from Maraba, Masaka axis of the state are constantly accumulated at Nyanya, leaving the board with the herculean task of evacuating them.
Abubakar, who disclosed this during evacuation of waste on the Nyanya/Keffi route over the weekend, revealed that over 200 truck load of waste is being evacuated from the axis every week
“You have seen that we cleared the dirt in Nyanya axis of Abuja-Keffi expressway, but by a week’s time it will be like we have never been there. This is because we noticed huge amount of wastes coming from Mararaba, Masaka get accumulated at that place.
“Every week, we remove no less than 200 tippers from there. So we will continue until we clear there.
“No one will carry waste from central area to go and dump in Nyanya. That waste is coming from Nasarawa state, one funny parts of it is that we are only to clean 10 metres from the express. Now, if you look at Nyanya and Karu they have about two hundred metres away from the road but they bring their waste to the road.”
He however assured that the mop up operations will have to continue across the city in areas like Garki Village, Jahi, the Car wash area of Lugbe, among others.
While reacting to media reports that the board had abandoned cleaning of the city, the director disclosed that some contractors who bided for cleaning contract were frustrating sanitation exercise in the city.
He said some cleaning contract awards are not being completed because of frequent petitions from the contractors, which is occasioned by the contractors’ desperation.
Hassan decried the process of awarding contract is further slowing down clean up in the city. “I am not the director of Procurement, but the award of contract is taking unnecessary longer time. Let us follow due process, award contract and give the contractors award letters so that AEPB will process their payment. Let them get the award letter and accept the award so that we can go on other process, but as it is now, none of them have award letter.”
On his part, the Head of Unit of AEPB’s Mop up Operations, Mr Abdullahi Audu, said the exercise is a weekly operation in areas where there are illegal refuse dumps.
He noted that the presence of huge amount of wastes along road corridors, not only defaces the nation’s capital city, but also the entire environment.
“The whole area is very untidy, and you can see the level of gridlock that our activity (wastes evacuation) is causing anytime we come around for the exercise.”
