Segun James
The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) yesterday asked the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) to probe fraud allegations in the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA).
CACOL, a coalition of civil society organisations fighting corruption, urged the Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr. Tunji Bello to constitute an emergency drainage desilting exercise to save people from imminent floods as heavier rains are still expected.
It made this call in a statement its Executive Chairman, Mr. Debo Adeniran issued yesterday, citing diverse infractions that had been brought against the waste authority, its leadership and some of its contractors recently.
LAWMA had come under public scrutiny in the recent time with street sweepers alleging non-payment of four-month salaries and unprecedented rise in the agency’s running cost from N540 million to N1 billion per month.
Consequently, the state governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu asked Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin the LAWMA’s Managing Director to set aside and directed an audit of the accounts of the state waste management authority.
LAWMA has 652 operators, who largely are loyalists of All Progressives Congress (APC) alongside 15,498 sweepers and supervisors working for the operators. The operators are allocated different areas of Lagos, which are designated as routes. In all, there are 600 routes in the state.
At these instances, CACOL claimed that fraud running into hundreds of millions of Naira had been uncovered in the state waste management agency.
Citing different reports, the organisation alleged that the beneficiaries were some contractors, who engaged street sweepers for the cleaning of Lagos roads.
It also alleged that due to the connection of some of the culprits, who are mostly politicians, there was fear nothing would be done about the discovery, thus calling EFCC and ICPC to investigate LAWMA’s the allegations.
It claimed that the running cost of LAWMA “rose from about N540 million to N1 billion. With the rise, Sanwo-Olu asked the former Managing Director to step aside for an audit while Mr. Ibrahim Odumboni was asked to oversee the process.
“Report, detailed how the management of the agency had been siphoning public funds through corrupt practices of padded wage bills by LAWMA’s contractors and passed the cost to the government as the salaries of their workers.
“Trouble started when auditors got to Ikorodu to verify claims made by a contractor in charge. The contractor was identified as Iron Lady and allegedly had 66 routes assigned to her. The woman claimed to have 2,310 workers.
“The auditors discovered that most of the names submitted by the woman to collect money were non-existent, while a number of the routes were unkempt. Based on the figures she submitted to the government, her company was collecting over N80 million monthly from LAWMA.
“On the appointed day, only half of the number she gave showed up for verification. In some cases, a sweeper would be discovered to own several phones documented under different names,” the group said.
According to CACOL, the audit was only one week old when a protest broke out among the street sweepers, who claimed that they had not been paid for several months.
It noted that direct interactions with some of the sweepers in the state “supported media reports in the public domain. Also, the Commissioner for the Environment also corroborated media reports when he said there was no reason why the agency should owe the sweepers because their funding comes directly from the Ministry of Finance.
“Considering the strategic and critical role of the agency in the maintenance of cleanliness in the state, we are seriously concerned about the enormity of corruption going on in the waste management authority in the state.”
The group, thus, called on the anti-corruption agencies “to quickly wade into the matter now with a view to sanitizing it and bringing those responsible for the alleged fraud to book so as to serve as a deterrent to others while maintaining a cleaner environment for all Lagos residents.”
It called for the handing over of LAWMA’s former managing director to the ICPC or EFCC “to answer the allegations. The laxity, mediocrity and ineptitude he brought on LAWMA are the reasons everywhere was flooded during the week and a few lives and property were lost irretrievably.”
It called the commissioner for environment “to as a matter of urgency constitute an emergency drainage desilting exercise to safe people from imminent floods as heavier rains are still expected before the last quarter of the year.”
