RSG To Employ More Road Sweepers

The Rivers State Government plans to engage more road sweepers to cover areas that are not yet covered including the remote areas.

Commissioner for Environment, Mr. Kingsley Chindah who disclosed this during an interview with The  Tide on Sunday at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, said the arrangement is receiving finishing touches.

He cautioned that as soon as the plan is concluded, a taskforce would be raised to check littering of the roads, pointing out that anyone caught dropping pure water satchets and other items on the roads will be seriously dealt with.

“We want to caution that as soon as we go into that, we will have liter control. If you drop one piece of pure water sachet, we will deal with you as if you committed not just a common offence but a felony”, the commissioner stressed, adding, “we are going to be very aggressive.”

He hinted that arrangement has also reached top gear to relocate all mechanics and secondhand car dealers operating at unauthorised places as soon as the Memorandum of  Understanding (MoU) is signed, just as the motor parts dealers along Olu Obasanjo road will be relocated.

The environment commissioner reiterated government’s decision on trading along Bishop Okoye Street, Mile 3 and warned traders to desist as anyone paying money to any person to trade there does that at his or her risk.

Advising residents of Port Harcourt to be sanitation conscious, he urged them to have a change of attitude towards the environment as “we have heard a lot of environmental messages and campaigns.”

“I appeal to the people of Port Harcourt to turn a new leaf and stop litering or urinating on the streets,”, he said, noting that a telephone number will soon be made available for use to report defaulters of sanitation laws”.

Mr. Chindah disclosed that seven defaulters were recently prosecuted before a Port Harcourt Magistrate Court and some of them sentenced to 3 to 4 days imprisonment while some were made to pay fines.

Shedie Okpara