From Chiangi Avese, Makurdi
The acting general manager, of Benue State Environmental Sanitation Agency (BENSESA), Mr. Martins Tseuma has called on Governor Hyacinth Alia to take urgent steps towards addressing the gross shortage of manpower at the agency.
Mr. Tseuma made the call while speaking in Makurdi concerning the monthly observance of environmental sanitation exercise in the state.
“I am deeply saddened with the sanitary condition of the state, particularly, the state capital. Bushes are allowed to grow around homes, even as drainages are packed with refuse making it impossible for water to freely flow. Residents are complacent on environmental sanitation days. This is unacceptable and will not be tolerated”.
According to the Acting General Manager, “the agency has only 68 permanent and 78 casual staff to cover the whole state. This has made it difficult to extend the agency’s operations beyond Makurdi the state capital”.
“It is disturbing that the zonal offices in Gboko, Otukpo, and Katsina-Ala towns have no environmental health officers. I am appealing to Governor Hyacinth Iormem Alia to re-engage the casual staff who were laid off to assist in keeping the state clean”, Mr. Tseuma said.
The General Manager who explained that waste management was capital intensive said, “All the waste management vehicles have broken down but expressed hope that the vehicles will be fixed in the shortest possible time to ride the state of wastes littering all over the place”.
On how the revenue generated by the agency is appropriated, Mr. Tseuma told journalists that all monies generated by the agency are paid into the state consolidated account and only a percentage is given back to the agency for the running of its activities.
He commended Governor Hyacinth Alia for ensuring that all the 22 local government councils except Gboko remitted what is due to the agency in June.
He vowed that the agency will by the next sanitation exercise clamp down on those who are always complacent in carrying out sanitation activities during sanitation hours especially residents along Terwase Agbadu, George Akume Way, MT Square, and Abuking Shuluwa road settlements.
In last Saturday’s sanitation exercise, the Acting General Manager said, over one hundred people were arrested and arraigned before the sanitation mobil court for flouting sanitation laws while vehicles and motor circles were also seized and taken to the agency’s headquarters.
