Why Oyo environmental task force impounds trucks — Consultant

The Oyo State Waste Management Consultant, Mottainai Recycling Ltd has debunked allegations levelled against it by some waste contractors in the State particularly as relates to the impoundment of vehicles of some waste operators, who failed to comply with the guidelines governing the new waste management architecture in the State.

Earlier, in an S.O.S message, some contractors had alleged that the Consultant’s approach in waste management was counterproductive.

The Managing Director of Mottainai Recycling Limited, Mr Adegoroye Adewuyi, described the allegations as unsubstantiated, spurious, baseless, and unfounded, stressing that it was clearly a case of corruption fighting back at every effort made to sanitize the system.

He, however, noted that the core of Mottainai’s responsibilities, as approved by Governor Seyi Makinde was to ensure that the mandate of a cleaner state was achieved.

According to Adewuyi, “Our mandate as the waste consultant is to come up with policies and administer an effective and efficient waste management process across the state. As a private entity, we operate a merit and capacity-based system across board and more particularly as it relates to waste operators in the State. We cannot run a Private Sector Participation (PSP) model due to the nature of our contract with the State Government, hence the introduction of a franchisee model which has set guidelines that would govern both Mottainai and its franchisees for an effective and transparent waste management system.

“It’s a two-pronged approach; we could either engage in direct collection of waste from source or engage the services of the existing waste collectors or bring on board, seek out new investors/participants in the sector. A major criterion that qualifies a waste collector to work with us is evidence of capacity and not the fact one has operated as an operator for several years. The level of customer satisfaction recorded, ownership of appropriate vehicles, compliance with existing guidelines etc. are some of the prerequisites of being an accredited operator under the Mottainai model.

He said as part of the company’s measures to improve the welfare and viability of the waste operators, the review and standardisation of appropriate waste tariffs as well as the introduction of a sharing percentage of 60/40%.

“The sole responsibility of the operators is to ensure that the customers are serviced regularly, and dockets are issued as agreed. Mottainai then takes on the responsibility of managing invoicing, payment generation, split sharing etc amongst other responsibilities which has brought about a positive effect to date,” he hinted.

Adewuyi stressed that the company has been covering up for the shortcomings of waste contractors, who have not been visiting allotted operational slots. He clarified that the impoundment of waste trucks as alleged was to alleviate incidence of non-compliance and sabotage by the affected waste operators on the agreed standards set for the efficiency of the waste management sector.

He said many of them, who have been complaining, could not meet up with their obligations, adding that such impoundment is to make enforcement effective while ensuring efficiency. He also debunked allegations that the company is engaging in witch-hunting or victimizing anybody.

“It is only in Ibadan that I have encountered a person who doesn’t own a truck and goes about borrowing or hiring trucks that would call him or herself a waste contractor.”

“If you delve into the existing issues, we conducted a Waste Management Audit in order to understand the sector – its lapses and strengths and figure out ways to improve and protect the economy of the State.

“We do not believe in sacking people arbitrarily as we advocate for engaging with people based on their capabilities. The results of the Audit conducted showed that a lot of operators falsified claims of truck ownership; indulge in indiscriminate disposal of waste which also contributed to the unrelenting and indiscriminate nature of waste disposal in the State.

“Also, we introduced the use of waste compliance notes (also known as Dockets). These dockets are issued by the operators to customers as evidence of service rendered as it contains information like the number of waste bins collected, the date and time of service, the homeowner/customer signature. The dockets are then used by Mottainai as a basis for the issuance of an invoice to the customer for services rendered.

“So, our investigation revealed that some of them are now actually working with those trucks they brought in for recertification, so they lied their way in. We also observed that a lot of the erring operators do not service customers regularly; refuse to issue dockets for service rendered and indulge in the collection of direct cash payments which is in flagrant disregard of the agreed standards. This results in complaints from customers which results in Mottainai taking on the duties of these operators in order to satisfy these customers.

“The way it works is that we are ensuring that all hands are on deck to ensure the effective management of the solid waste architecture which in turn impacts on the environment under the Zero Waste, Zero Budget Initiative,” he stressed.