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By Olumuyiwa Gbadegesin
Recently, our customer service team received several complaints about missed waste collections in a community served by a PSP operator. The operator explained that her truck had been stuck at the dumpsite for days. Our PSP Services Department checked and confirmed that the vehicle was indeed there.
Further investigation, however, revealed something the initial verification had missed. The truck had run out of fuel, and the operator had been unable to refuel it. Its location was correct, but the explanation for its continued presence was incomplete. Meanwhile, waste was accumulating in the community.
I mobilised LAWMA intervention trucks to clear the backlog and sanctioned the operator. The episode also prompted us to bring forward electronic monitoring of disposal-site queues, rather than wait for the new transfer loading stations as originally intended.
That experience has stayed with me. A resident waiting for collection and an officer examining an operational report can be looking at the same service through very different evidence. Our responsibility is to close that gap.
Customer Service Week, observed this year from October 5 to 9, provides an opportunity to examine how well we do this. Its theme, “Going the Extra Mile”, has particular relevance to public services, where answering a complaint must lead to practical action beyond the customer care desk.
For LAWMA, the residents and businesses served by our Private Sector Participation operators are our customers. The distinction between the operator collecting waste and the Authority supervising the system is important for assigning responsibilities. It should never become a reason to send a resident from one office to another without an answer.
What the Quarterly Figures Tell Us
Our third-quarter customer care report, summarised in LAWMA’s statement of 7 October, recorded 2,791 customer interactions between July and September 2026. These comprised 2,230 waste-related complaints and 561 other enquiries and interactions.
We received 851 complaints in July, 567 in August and 812 in September. At the close of the quarter, 1,291 complaints were recorded as resolved, while 939 remained under review.
Approximately 58 per cent of the quarter’s complaints had therefore been recorded as resolved by the reporting cut-off. That represents significant work, but it also means substantial work remains.
Both facts belong in our account of performance. Resolved cases represent responses to problems brought to our attention. Outstanding cases require continued follow-up, clear responsibility, and communication with the people affected. The end of a reporting period does not bring a resident’s concern to an end.
We also need to ask more of our records. How long did the resolution take? Did the resident receive updates while waiting? Was accumulated waste removed? Did routine collection resume afterwards?
A quarterly total cannot answer all these questions. Nor should we assume that fewer complaints necessarily mean better service. Our objective is dependable collection and an accessible complaints process, supported by evidence that corrective action has worked.
Following the Complaint into the Field
During the quarter, feedback on service gaps informed stakeholder engagement and direct evacuation interventions in Abraham Adesanya, Isefun, Oshodi, Oke-Ira and Ramoni Ward in Lawanson.
These interventions illustrate how customer care should connect with operations. A report about missed collection must reach the officers who can verify the problem, establish the cause and arrange a response. Where waste has accumulated, operational resources may be necessary. Where the same problem keeps returning, the investigation must go further.
The stranded truck illustrates why this matters. Confirming that a vehicle is at a disposal site does not establish whether it is waiting to tip, has broken down or cannot move for another reason. Each explanation requires a different response.
There is also a difference between clearing a backlog and restoring a service. An intervention truck can remove accumulated waste. It cannot, by that action alone, establish that the assigned operator will return for the next scheduled collection.
Our follow-up therefore looks beyond evacuation. We need to establish who will undertake subsequent collections, whether the necessary capacity exists and whether the community understands the arrangement. Where dumping returns to a cleared location, we must examine both access to collection and the behaviour contributing to the problem.
This is why our response combines evacuation with route monitoring, community engagement, advocacy and enforcement. The appropriate combination depends on what the evidence shows.
Accountability Must Protect the Customer
Complaint patterns also help us examine PSP performance.
Repeated reports from the same service area warrant closer attention, particularly when field checks establish persistent collection gaps.
An operator’s performance should be assessed against the service it is expected to provide and the resources available to deliver it. That includes serviceable vehicles, reliable deployment and the ability to sustain operations. Explanations deserve investigation, but they must be tested against what is happening on the route.
The recent review affected six PSP service areas in Igbogbo-Baiyeku, Olorunda, Ojo, Orile Agege, Ajeromi-Ifelodun and Ojodu. Five operators had their licences terminated following capacity assessments, while one operator withdrew voluntarily.
The purpose of such action is to protect service delivery. A sanction is not itself a collection arrangement. Our responsibility extends to supporting interim interventions and establishing dependable arrangements for the affected communities.
Accountability must also work in both directions. PSP operators need functioning disposal access, orderly site operations and a responsive Authority when they encounter genuine constraints. If an operator identifies a problem within LAWMA’s part of the system, we must investigate and address it with the same seriousness we expect from the operator.
Residents should not carry the cost of an unresolved disagreement about where responsibility lies.
Making the Response Easier to Follow
The next stage of our work is to connect customer reports more closely with operational evidence: the assigned service area, operator, collection schedule, vehicle movements and disposal records.
The practical question is straightforward: Can we follow a reported service failure from the customer’s first contact through investigation, corrective action and confirmation that collection has resumed?
That is the direction of the reporting and monitoring improvements we are developing. Technology should help officers answer customers accurately and help managers identify problems earlier. A vehicle-location record is useful, but it does not, on its own, prove that a street has been served. A photograph of cleared waste provides evidence of an intervention, but subsequent collection still needs checking.
Resident feedback should form part of that verification. We need to know whether the action recorded in our system corresponds with the experience at the property or on the street.
The same principle applies to individual complaints. Residents should know who is handling the matter, what action is being taken, and when to expect another update. “Under review” may describe an internal status, but it is not a sufficient explanation to someone whose waste remains uncollected.
Supporting the People Who Respond
Customer Service Week is also an opportunity to recognise our customer care officers, community liaison personnel and operational teams who act on the reports they receive.
Listening carefully to a frustrated resident requires patience and judgement. Following a matter through several departments requires persistence. These colleagues deserve practical support: accurate information, clear escalation routes and managers who respond when intervention is needed.
It is unfair to expect a customer care officer to provide certainty that the operational system cannot support. This is why our management has ensured that those answering residents have access to the people making deployment decisions.
To our customers, I ask that you continue to report missed collections and other waste-service concerns. A clear address or landmark, the date of the last collection and the operator’s name, where known, help us locate and investigate a problem. Photographs can also be useful, but access to a smartphone should not determine whether someone receives assistance.
LAWMA’s published contact channels include 08000052962, 07080601020 and [email protected].
We ask residents to store waste responsibly, use approved collection services and meet their service obligations. Those responsibilities do not diminish our duty to investigate a legitimate complaint. Equally, a collection failure must not lead to waste being placed in drains, on road medians or in other public spaces.
The residents who reported the stranded operator’s missed collections were not setting out to improve our queue monitoring. They wanted their waste collected. By following their complaints beyond the first explanation, we identified a failure that required both immediate intervention and a change in how we monitored operations.
That is the standard we strive to apply consistently: listen carefully, establish what happened, act on the evidence, and follow through. Customer service succeeds when the person who contacted us can see the result — and the next collection arrives without another complaint.
• Gbadegesin is Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, LAWMA, Ijora, Lagos
