New environment law to improve waste management in Lagos
… as state to establish Environment Trust Fund
Investors can look to new opportunities in waste management and general improvement of the environment in Lagos, as the state, on Wednesday, passed a new legislation to attract more local and foreign investments in the sector.
BusinessDay gathers that some Europe-based investors are already positioned to launch into domestic waste collection and may be entering the state with close to 600 compactors in investment worth millions of dollars.
Known as Environmental Sanitation Law, the new legislation consolidates all hitherto existing environmental laws and also provides for the creation of Environmental Trust Fund to be funded from Public Utility Levy (PUL) to effectively cater for the environment.
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, signing the law at the Lagos House, Ikeja, said the PUL would be an annual charge replacing all service fees previously paid to the waste management authorities and would take effect as the rollout commenced.
“We have worked closely with the public in determining the rates and have succeeded in keeping this levy relatively low. The PUL will be a major contribution to the state’s ongoing efforts to address severe challenges that are unique to Lagos because of rising urbanisation. The money will be held in the Environmental Trust Fund and managed meticulously by a board regulated trustees.
“The trustees are under strict obligations to the people of Lagos and will be accountable to the people for every naira we spend in line with our overall environmental agenda. Compliance is the key. The burden of the cost of providing these services will remain low if everyone does their part and pays their PUL,” Ambode said.
With the new law, the state, he said, would have a zero-tolerance for offenders “because disregarding payment of your PUL or flouting the new regulations ultimately promotes activities that lead to the loss of lives.”
The new law which is in support of the ‘Cleaner Lagos Initiative’ according to Ambode, will see the commercial sector of waste management serviced by licensed operators while an environmental consortium will provide waste collection, processing and disposal services for residential properties through a long-term concession.
“Over the concession period, the consortium will be deploying a large multidimensional fleet of over 20 landfill and transfer loading station management vehicles, 590 new rear-end loader compactors, 140 operational vehicles and close to 900,000 new bins to all be electronically tracked and monitored by our new unit Public Utilities Monitoring Assurance Unit (PUMAU) under the ministry of environment,” he said.
He added that the consortium will be expected to run a 24 hour operation at the transfer loading stations and the landfills to address a large number of the operational challenges previously experienced.
He said the state will be constructing multiple engineered landfills and roll out phased closures of all existing dumpsites and will improve the water sector by introducing public/private partnerships for sustainable solutions to the challenges of wastewater treatment.