ASABA—Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan yesterday in Asaba commissioned 22 earth moving equipment and trucks for the State’s Direct Labour Agency and Waste Management Board to reinvigorate road maintenance and win the war against filth.

The Governor who called on Deltans to send text messages on failed roads to his dedicated number, 32815, for immediate attention, warned local government areas in the state against abandoning their responsibility of waste management in their localities.

The Governor lamented that the councils over the years have refused to assume their responsibilities of managing wastes at markets, parks and other public places in their localities, a development he emphasized has generated filth in parts of the state.

He said,  “I want to warn the councils to take this issue of managing wastes in the areas seriously, which is a primary responsibility in their schedule of functions.

The state government has decided to do something drastic in this regard to ensure the councils desist from abdicating their responsibilities of making sure they manage wastes in their areas and keep their environments clean.”

He said a major challenge confronting waste management in the state was the difficulty in acquiring dumpsites as people and communities express fear that dumpsites breed toxic and epidemics, but assured that government will ensure toxics are not generated at dumpsites.

Dr. Uduaghan invited the private sector to partner with his administration in its determination to execute its programme on climate change and environmental pollution.

The Governor who enjoined the private sector to key into the state governments’ environmental programme said the sector has good and lucrative business potentials.

He said there were employment opportunities in waste management and advised the private sector not to ignore it.

On the construction equipment purchased for the Direct Labour Agency in the state, he said the equipment would enable the agency carry out its duty of quick maintenance of failed portions on roads in the state, urging  the agency to establish a monitoring unit that will always visit roads in the state and report those with failed portions.

He charged the Agency to always carry out its intervention duty promptly as it was cheaper to maintain roads than start fresh construction. “The Direct Labour Agency is not to construct fresh roads. It is just to intervene and work on failed portions of roads in the state,” he said.

The Governor also enjoined the Agency to monitor roads in the state this raining season and ensure that all the pot holes were repaired.

The Commissioner for Environment, Mr Bello Orubebe, said “there is a nexus between environmental sanitation and integrated development. There cannot be a wealthy nation without a healthy environment.”

He noted that poor environmental sanitation breeds unhealthy population and a degraded environment is an impediment to the realisation of development goals, adding that “poor sanitary conditions especially in our urban and semi-urban areas exacerbate poverty by diminishing productivity and household income through recurrent sanitation related illnesses with its high cost of treatment and medication”.