Recently, Ondo State Government gave full concessions of the state waste management to a private firm, ZL Global Alliance Nigeria Ltd. Dr. Mrs. Abiola Bashorun, Chief Executive Officer of the company, in this interview with Femi Ogbonnikan, sheds more light on her plan to improve the waste management system and on the number of jobs to be created, among others
Tell us about ZL Global Alliance?
Global Alliance Nigeria Ltd is a private company which primarily deals with waste management and recycling business. We have presence in five locations in Nigeria. Our biggest transaction is in Ondo State, with Ondo State government; which is our second biggest client, followed by the Kaduna State Government. We are also in Abia, Edo and Rivers states. We have a major regional office in Abuja.
Ondo State government has just given your company concession to manage waste in the state, what are your plans in this direction?
We will play a private sector role, and our job mainly is to ensure effective waste management system in Ondo State. Our role is to ensure equipment management and introduction of effective equipment into the system. We are to put in place, world class waste management in the state. Part of our job is to inject and invest capital in the state’s waste management system. And we are to train and employ people for effective waste management in the state.
What will the state government benefit from the new arrangement?
The state will benefit a lot. Let us start from the most important; there will be effective waste management from our homes. The people of Ondo State will enjoy clean, safer and hygienic environment which will lead to healthy living. You can see the outbreak of Lassa fever, Ebola, cholera, malaria; all these are as a result of junks generated and accumulated from a dirty environment. Waste management is divided into desilting of gutters and drainages, registration and better control. For better control, we must visit our markets and rid them of all forms of dirt; that is just our primary job. Our secondary job is to create wealth out of our waste and we have a slogan to it in our company-â€No waste is to be wasted; waste is raw materialâ€. So, under our waste-to-wealth drive, we package waste with which materials are refurbished. We have one in Akure now and we are also building another one in Owo and Ondo towns, respectively. What we will be doing there is to separate plastic from the waste, soft and hard. The hard plastic will be crunched, palletised and moulded into plastic bucket. There is also sachet water and nylon, which we will crunch and palletise to make smaller nylon. We usually do that for poverty alleviation scheme, where we work with widows and women in the villages. Also, we will reuse domestic waste like eba, rice, garri and others, as we introduce our biogas from dustbin, which we will change to electric fertilizer, and that fertilizer will be sold to us again, while the gas from that composition will create bio fertilizer. We have demonstration of this in our office abroad.
What is your projected capital injection into the system?
We are injecting N7 billion. Our financial partners are Access Bank and others in Nigeria. Internationally, we are partnering with Ashtrom Tel-Aviv Isiat, an Israeli partner, and we have served as their subsidiary in Nigeria for the past 26 years. They have provisions for all our constructions, with allied local contents. So, 60 per cent of our construction will be given to Ashtrom Tel-Aviv, Israel, while 40 per cent will be given to our local architects in Ondo State.
How many jobs do you intend to create?
Yes, youths are 60 per cent of the Nigerian populace. Our activities are youth-based and any company that does not look after the youths is not looking after the future. We don’t employ people older than 37 years, and mostly, we will employ graduates up to Masters’ degree levels who are jobless. We will start with 3,500 employments and in the next two years, we are looking at nothing less than 5, 000 jobs. And these will get down to secondary school leavers and even JSS 3 certificate holders in the state. The overall employment in this contract is 20,000 youths.
How many years’ contract do you have with the state government?
Twenty years. During the period, the Governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has directed us to inject capital into the system for effective waste management and salary. We must also provide technical know-how. An average person in Ondo State must understand the basic principle of waste management, gathering waste and the consequences of this. Also, through our financial partners and subsidiaries, we will collect waste revenue for the government, so no more cash because cash can get missing. We will collect payment electronically for the government. The money will go to the government’s coffers and government will pay us. So our partnership with the government is to create an enabling environment to thrive. Government will be giving us very good support in the area of enforcement, sanction, monitoring, to create an effective business environment for us to thrive. The Waste Management Authority will be supervising and monitoring us to make sure we perform and to also ensure people pay their dues, because they have legal rights to sanction.
How soon will this agreement take effect?
It is with immediate effect. We have started our work. We signed the contract in 2015 under the immediate past administration of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, but it was a period of election, so we could not really take off. But now that we have a calm government and political environment, we perfected everything. And I want to thank Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, for giving us the opportunity to flourish.
What should the people of Ondo State expect from you?
They should expect hundred per cent loyalty, to care for them and to keep my promises as par terms of contract and everything we signed, to make Ondo State safer, healthier, greener and the cleanest in Nigeria. I also want to solicit their support and cooperation, so that we can collectively achieve the set goals for the betterment of all.
