LASG settles Visionscape, PSP operators feud

The waste wars in Lagos State ignited by the introduction of the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) might be nearing an end as months of discussions have led to a new arrangement as announced by the Ministry of the environment yesterday.

The two key players, Visionscape Sanitation Solutions and the Private Sector Participants (PSP) operators have reached an agreement, borne out of a need to give effective environmental services to the people of Lagos state.

Under the new arrangement, the PSP operators, now referred to as Waste Collection Operators (WCOs) have agreed to resume residential waste collection, where they will bill and service homes across the state, while Visionscape’s primary concern would be infrastructural development.

The new arrangement expounds the scope of Visionscape’s contract which includes the construction of more transfer loading stations, biomass plants, recycling facilities, waste-to-energy plants, leachate and waste water treatment schemes, dumpsite and landfill remediation and more.
It also placers the WCOs as the state’s residential waste collectors while Visionscape serves as the central processing hub of municipal solid waste within Lagos state.

Meanwhile, members of the Incorporated Trustees of Waste Managers Association of Nigeria (WMAN) known as Private Sector Participation (PSP) Waste Operators have dismissed claims of this settlement, arguing that no such settlement agreement exist as being claimed by government officials. They added that the parties were due back in court on May 3, 2018 for determination of the matter.

According to a statement issued yesterday by the Chairman of the association, Ola Egbeyemi, the waste operators stated that contrary to claims, government is insisting that they are restricted to commercial waste collection only while Visionscape continues to solely manage the collection and disposal of domestic waste, which has remained the bone of contention between them from the start.

The statement however, confirmed that there is an ongoing discussion, but the parties are yet to settle. PSP also called on the State government to “permits a return to status quo, and allowed to go back to the collection, transportation and disposal of waste, an area we have perfected the act in the last 19 years while Government and Visionscape concentrate their efforts in the sector’s infrastructural deficit, including providing Material Recovery Facilities and Transfer Loading Stations, among others. He also claimed the foreign company is only out to see how it can use them to stabilise itself and do away with them.