Rivers
RIWAMA Sets Up Task Force To Monitor Refuse Dumping
The Rivers State Waste Management Agency, RIWAMA, has set up a taskforce with the aim to eliminate dumping of refuse on road median.
In a statement signed by Special Adviser to the Sole Administrator of RIWAMA Jerry Needam, and made available to The Tide, the agency said the act of dumping refuse on road median had been banned forthwith.
He said a task force had been put in place to enforce the order and arrest and prosecute any person(s) caught breaching the order.
RIWAMA Sole Administrator, Bro Felix Obuah, said the decision became necessary following flagrant disregard to all efforts of the agency by members of the public to see reason and discontinue with the uncivilised attitude that exposes the greater majority of the people doing business in the state to danger.
The RIWAMA boss regretted that the considerate disposition of the agency had been mistaken for weakness, hence the need for the irreversible decision.
Bro Obuah said, from henceforth the agency had shifted from making appeals to people to stop the behaviour of dumping wastes on the median to dealing with those who refuse to repent from the act to meting out the punishment due them so that they serve as deterrents to others.
“I am therefore urging those in the habit of not using the receptacles strategically located at various points on the roads and streets, preferring to test our might by scattering wastes on the median of the road to advise themselves and stop forthwith.
“It’s better to do so now than pleading for mercy if apprehended by the task force that has been given all the powers to monitor compliance to the ban order”, he said.
By: Kevin Nengia