NAN-AE-7
Contractors
By Vivian Emoni
Abuja, April 11, 2017 (NAN) Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) has advised its 1,020 contractors to show more commitment in efforts to sanitise Abuja and its satellite towns.
Mr Muktar Ibrahim, the Head of AEPB’s Information and Outreach Unit, made the appeal in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
Ibrahim said that the contractors were engaged to promote environmental health of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He said that the board engaged the contractors who, in turn, employed street sweepers to sweep the roads.
“The contractors are to evacuate all the waste, while their employees are to cut the grasses and sweep the streets with the sweeping machines provided for them by AEPB.
“The inner roads are swept manually by women who are employed on a daily basis within the city.
“It is the responsibility of the board to pay the contractors and provide them with working equipment to ensure that they do their job effectively.
“The board also monitors the contractors to ensure that the environment is clean and healthy,’’ he said.
Ibrahim, however, said that the board met with the contractors and cleaners on a daily basis to know their challenges and how to tackle such problems.
He said that AEPB also instructed the contractors to look after the welfare of the cleaners, while equipping them with caution signs and proper uniforms to protect them from oncoming vehicles.
He said that the cleaners were also supposed to wear nose masks and hand cloves to protect them from dust.
One of the contractors, Mr Uchenna Chunde, nonetheless, said that it was a huge challenge to persuade the residents to desist from discarding their garbage in illegal refuse dumpsites in their neighbourhoods.
“The residents just need to cooperate with us and the board in our efforts to ensure that FCT remains clean and healthy.
“It is also good to sensitise the residents to the dangers and implications of indiscriminate waste disposal,’’ he added. (NAN)
VOE/OFN/OOK
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Edited by Felix Nwadioha and Dayo Komolafe