Abia State Ministry of Environment has frowned at the practice of security agencies diverting environmental cleanup defaulters and extorting money from them into their private pocket.
The state’s Commissioner for Environment, Mr Philomen Asonye Ogbonna made this observation known in Umuahia Saturday, while fielding questions who monitored the month’s sanitation exercise.
Represented by his Permanent Secretary, Joy Maduka, the state government stated that it is using the cleanup exercise to promote a cleaner environment for Abia citizens, noting however that the April edition recorded significant improvement when compared with previous editions, regretting also that those on uniform violate the exercise.
Maduka, who appraised the exercise as having lots of improvement, expressed her worries over the development, stating “only that from time to time, law enforcement agencies default the sanitation time which is absolutely wrong”.
Narrating her ordeal at the hands of an alleged military personnel, the Permanent Secretary said, “A man who was violating the exercise went to the extent of abusing officials and even moved to fight our lady personnel, only to calm down when he was being videoed and he later identified himself as a military personnel. But he was really abusing us”
She appealed to residents that the exercise is not only for Abia State, but a nation-wide exercise, stating, “now we have a working governor in the state who is interested in the cleanliness of the environment, we should all try to observe ithe exercise”.
She advised, “But if you are not resident in the state and happens to be here, just wait untill the exercise is done with and you go your way”.
She regretted also that some security agencies come out of the road to make money from defaulters during the period of the exercise, adding, “Sometimes too, they allow defaulters to go free and as a result therefore, we have purchased cleanup implements to, in some cases, give to defaulters to participate in the exercise, while some are taken to the Environmental court for trial.
She pleaded with all that no matter their profession, as long as they are not on essential duties, to participate in the exercise which is only about 3 hours and is nationwide.
Also speaking, Deputy General Manager of Abia State Environmental Protection Agency, ASEPA in charge of Umuahia zone, Ambrose Jonah said that the agency has concluded arrangements to start penalizing anyone found dumping waste at unapproved places and at unauthorized times, disclosing that more waste disposal equipment has been acquired by the state government.
This arrangement, he said was an aftermath of monitoring sensitization and cleanup awareness organized by his agency, Ministry of Environment, and other Environmental friendly groups to sanitize Umuahia city center and environs.
Offenders were subjected to different punishments, including fines and manual labour
