Weeks after Calabar and other urban centres in the state witnessed tons of overflowing refuse bins, www.calitown.com can reveal that while the Cross River State Government appears to have parted ways with some firms it contracted refuse evacuation to, over her inability to honour her financial obligations to the firms, what appears to be a remedial effort to evacuate refuse, especially in Calabar, the state capital, is becoming a source of embarrassment to the state.
First, the open trucks drafted in to do the job are ill-equipped for the job. While mechanised refuse evacuation was hitherto employed, the manual refuse evacuation process being employed now, appears cumbersome, does not get the job done and “the people just end up blocking streets for hours unend and then litter the highway with patches of refuse in the name of going to dump the refuse”, as one resident said.
“The men who can be seen with shovels, scooping up the refuse, do it poorly and spend considerable time instead smoking marijuana on the streets while hold-ups are unnecessarily created”, another resident remarked. This development is making residents of Calabar uncomfortable. “So all of a sudden, we do not have money to pay for refuse evacuation, the people who are haphazardly doing the evacuation now, do they belong to the Red Cross?”, a resident asked.
As reported by www.calitown.com, not too long ago, Jozo Environmental Services, awarded the refuse evacuation contract for Calabar Municipality, withdrew her services over the non-payment of money for services rendered. It is however being speculated that the heaps of refuse still visible in the state will continue to be seen as a few unnamed persons are working behind the scene to embarass government which has still not appointed a commissioner to the CRS Ministry of Environment, months after Sandy Onoh, the last man to occupy the position was dropped in circumstances that are not unconnected with politics.
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