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From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi
As parts of efforts to maintain a safer and cleaner environment for Benue people, the Benue State Government led by Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia has vowed to go hard on serial defaulters of sanitation laws in the state.
The General Manager, Benue State Environmental Sanitation Agency (BENSESA), Jennifer Daniels made this known on Tuesday at the Agency’s Headquarters in Makurdi.
She said the agency would be enforcing environmental sanitation laws with a view to effecting behavioural change from the public and making Benue people practice regular clean up of their environment instead of waiting for the end of a month.
“We are going to go down hard on the offenders, people who have deliberately refused to adhere to sanitation laws in the state. We will be employing and using all what it takes to ensure that people comply.”
Responding on what stalled the activities of the agency for a while, Mrs Nashima said there was no functional truck for service delivery when she took over as the GM of the Agency.
“On resumption of my appointment as General Manager of BENSESA, I met a dead system, we had moribund trucks that have been broken down for a number of years, some eight years, some five years, some two years, some months, but there was no functional truck for service delivery as at the time I took over as the GM.”
Nashima thanked the Governor Hyacinth Alia for immediately releasing funds for the refurbishment of the trucks.
She said five of the trucks were already up and functional, stressing that the end point was to ensure cleanliness in line with the vision of Governor Alia’s administration to guarantee a cleaner and safer environment for Benue people.
She added that the agency had already embarked on sensitization and inspection of premises to ensure that people comply with environmental sanitation laws in the state, promising to replicate whatever they were doing to the other 22 local government areas in the state.
The agency promised to designate roll-on bins in busy areas where their trucks cannot move easily and also provide public mobile toilets to take care of open defecation and open urination.
Mrs Nashima mentioned lack of befitting office accommodation as a major challenge, saying however that renovation work had already begun on the administrative block which was abandoned by the previous administration.
She thanked the Benue State Governor, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia for standing firm to ensure that BENSESA was remodeled and equipped for optimal service delivery.
