John Adams, Minna
The 25 local government chairmen in the Niger State has departed for Accra, the Ghanaian capital, for what the press secretary to the governor, Mrs Mary Noel Berje, said is to enable them to understudy waste management by Accra-based private company Jospang Waste Recycling Company.
Although the chairmen, who are barely two months in office, are said to have travelled to Ghana for a retreat, the press secretary, however, insisted that their trip to Ghana was in furtherance to an earlier visit last week by the state governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, to Jospang Waste Recycling Company for effective waste management in the state.
The trip to Ghana by the chairmen comes two months after they were inaugurated into office on January 10.
A similar retreat was organised for the council chairmen in Kaduna on January 12, two days after they were sworn in as local government Chairmen.
The trip to Ghana is coming when most of the council chairmen are grappling with the payment of February salaries to workers, especially education and health departments of the affected councils.
It was gathered that out of the 25 local government chairmen who embarked on the trip to Ghana, 13 of them cannot pay the salaries of their staff.
These councils include Chanchaga, Bida, Suleja, Kontagora, Mokwa, Paikoro, Shiroro, Lavun, Lapai, Agaie, Paikoro, Rijau and Tafa.
These affected councils have continued to rely on surplus from other council’s allocation through the Joint Account between the state and local government to meet up with their salaries obligations.
But the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, while defending the trip to Ghana by the chairmen when contacted, maintained that the essence was to ensure the success of the new sanitation approach to keeping the state clean and that the council chairmen as critical stakeholders in the approach must be carried along.
The state government, she pointed out, has concluded arrangements to go into partnership with a private waste management recycling facility of JOSPONG group of companies in Accra, Ghana for the effective turning of waste into productive materials for use.
“The Accra-based recycling group of companies is expected to establish an outfit in the state to take care of waste sorting and organic waste composting plant, plastic recycling and waste bins manufacturing plant, tricycle assembly plant and the state-of-the-art liquid waste processing plant.
“So the Chairmen need to be carried along because they will be the highest beneficiaries of the partnership. So the trip is not a retreat,” she added.