Lagos State Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat, has attributed the worsening waste situation in the state to a combination of increased waste generation, a shortage of functional waste collection trucks and challenges facing private sector operators.
Hamzat said the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), which is responsible for waste management in the state, had been tasked with handling a volume of refuse that was significantly higher than originally anticipated.
Speaking on Nigerian Info 99.3fm, the Deputy Governor said the government initially estimated that Lagos generated about 13,000 tonnes of waste daily but later discovered that the actual figure was closer to 17,000 tonnes.
“Well, so, you know, you know, it’s easy for me to just throw the agency under the bus, but I won’t do that. That’s the agency that’s responsible, that we all know, LAWMA. But it’s, so we’ve asked them to do a job, the scale of which we did not predict,” Hamzat said.
“And that scale is really unprecedented in this part of the world. So we thought that we are generating 13 tonnes on a daily basis. It turns out we are generating about 17,000.”
