Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers state once known as the garden city which attracts national and international events because of its beauty is now a shadow of itself.
Every nooks and crannies of the state capital are filled with dumps of refuse and garbage with stinking odour which poses health hazards to the residents.
Surprisingly, unlike in the past, refuse is being dumped on median of the roads with the Rivers state Waste Management Agency(RIWAMA) doing little or nothing about it. But recently, the agency has woken up from their slumber.
It has banned dumping of wastes on median of road and set up task force to monitor compliance.
The RIWAMA Sole Administrator, Bro Felix Obuah said the decision became necessary following flagrant disregard to all efforts of the agency by members of the public to see reason and discontinue with the uncivilized attitude that exposes the greater majority of the people doing business in the state to danger.
The RIWAMA boss regretted that the considerateness of the agency has been mistaken for weakness, hence the need for the irreversible decision.
Bro Obuah said from henceforth the agency has shifted from making appeals to people to stop the animalistic behaviour of dumping wastes on the median to dealing with those who refuse to repent from the act to meting out the punishment due them so that they serve as deterrents to others.
“I am therefore urging those in the habit of not using the receptacles strategically located at various points on the roads and streets, preferring to test our might by scattering wastes on the median of the road to advise themselves and stop forthwith. It’s better to do so now than pleading for mercy if apprehended by the task force that has been given all the powers to monitor compliance to the ban order”, Bro Obuah warned.
