Plateau to sensitise communities on refuse evacuation

General Manager of PEPSA Sunday Davou who disclosed this to newsmen after the monthly environmental sanitation exercise in Jos, said there are some areas in Jos that have huge heaps of refuse because people are not well sensitised on the negative effect of the dumped waste heaps, but stressed that the agency was strategising to ensure that all they are evacuated.
Davou also said: “We want to go into communities and have a community-based participatory exercise.  We want to enlighten the public on how to go about disposing their refuse and avoid the bad culture of dumping heaps of refuse in some areas so as to keep our environment clean. We want to have a kind of interface with communities to ensure they participate very well. Let the exercise be community participatory and not a government responsibility alone.”
On the success of the monthly sanitation exercise, Davou said that the assessment of compliance was fair but that it should be total and therefore called on the people of the state to carry out the exercise and keep their environment clean because, “we all know the relationship between environment and health. When we keep our environment clean, we have long life span and longevity is very important for nation building.”
Meanwhile over 15 people arrested for defaulting the state environmental sanitation exercise were released without any penalty at the weekend in Jos following the strike action of the Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) in the state.
Plateau State Commissioner for Environment John Daduut, who addressed newsmen after the exercise, said that the ministry had made effort recently to enforce total compliance with the environmental sanitation law but faced strong challenge as the judiciary system was on strike and the question of “enforcement by fine or penalty might not hold for today.”
When asked on the fate of the defaulters, he said, “Probably we give them a warning so that they don’t repeat it again since the judiciary is not functioning, and the court is the only body that can prescribe penalty for offenders. But we hope before the next exercise the strike will end. Everybody is expected to comply with the law. If the strike continues we will meet the state chief judge and work out other alternatives.”
Daduut added that for the next exercise, the ministry will initiate strategy to make sure that there is total compliance throughout the state because the issue of environmental sanitation is very important; everybody is supposed to keep his environment clean.