“There is need for resource recovery and the business of recycling should be made an industry with provision of efficient services and adequate facilities,” he said.
Ebisike while presenting a lecture at the 2014 National Environmental Sanitation Day Commemoration tagged “Our Environment, Our Health” in Lokoja Kogi State said, government is spending so much money with little result to show as waste dumps are seen in almost all parts of the cities and villages.
He said the effort of the government which is yielding little result is because the whole process may have become a conduit pipe for ineptitude and corruption thereby resulting to what we have today which unfortunately is taunting on the growth and development of the country.
He said improved sanitation will help to eradicate diseases such as malaria and serve as better intervention than continuous waste of funds in “Roll Back Malaria” programme. He added that laying more emphasis on Roll Back Malaria in a dirty environment will only make pharmaceutical companies very rich while the people are impoverished.
Ebisike added that the control of this disease is more of an environmental problem rather than medical problem. He stressed on the way states and local government laid embargo on the employment of Environmental Health Officers who are empowered by the law to enforce sanitation standards, adding that there are only few of them left in most states.
He said, “For environmental sanitation to transform into viable industry there is need for everyone to take part, ‘Our Environment, Our Health’, let our action counts.”