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Imo State Waste Management Company that has always been in the news for the very wrong reasons has again locked up factories in Owerri and other parts of the state without considering how much the affected companies will lose for the period they remain locked.
A member of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) who spoke to our correspondent said that most of their members have been subjected to multiple tolls and levies by government agencies but the worst of them all is the Waste Management Company that imposes outrageous levies on them for services they did not render.
This, according to him, is nothing but extorting packaged with harassment and intimidation.
According to him,”staff of the waste management company impose levies of between #500,000 and #1million naira on our members for services like waste disposal, when in actual fact the companies manage and dispose of their waste themselves.
The disturbing aspect of the issue is that the outrageous amounts we are told to pay are not paid into the State government’s TSA account but into a suspicious personal account that has nothing to do with the state government.
Adding his voice to the issue, Chief Charles Nnadiekwe, a member of MAN in Imo State, said the State government should encourage them by providing enabling environment and not to discourage them, pointing out that most of his colleagues have left Imo for other states because of these kind of issues that make things difficult for them in addition to impacting negatively on their businesses especially with the prevailing economic down turn.
Recall that the Imo Waste Management Company had earlier locked up the premises of some hotels alongside their occupants and guests most of whom came from different parts of the country for business engagements in Imo.
It was also reported about three weeks ago, that, “Imo State Waste Management Board, like most agencies of the state government, has imposed outrageous fees on business owners in the state without recourse to the prevailing economic downturn that has already taken its toll on all sectors of the economy.
Information available to our news desk indicates that the company which bears the name, Eastern Waste Management Board but quotes the Imo State Waste Management Law No 5, Section 15(1) which empowers Imo State Waste Management Board to seal up premises in the demand notice it claimed to have issued, locked up a popular high profile hotel in Owerri, with the occupants inside on Wednesday, November, 20, 2024, in the guise that the management of the hotel did not pay the sum of Three hundred and Twenty-Four thousand that was imposed on them as waste disposal fee.
Investigation by Nigeria Watchdog Newspaper reveals that, after the amount was later paid into the company’s bank account number, 1311356172, instead of the State governments Single Treasury Account (TSA), the company still refused to unlock the hotel to enable some of the trapped occupants and guests in the hotel to go for their businesses.
A staff of the hotel who pleaded anonymity said, “after paying the amount of N324,000 and N25,000 penalty that must be in cash as stated on the on the demand notice they came with, they insisted on collecting more money before they will unlock the hotel, despite the fact that they neither gave us notice nor issued demand notice prior to their visit to seal up the hotel.
I am aware that they did not give us any demand notice or reminder before they came to seal the hotel, an incident that caused monumental damage and inconveniences to the hotel and some of the guests who missed their flights because of the delay caused by agents of the waste management board”.
A look at the demand notice which they gave the hotel shows that they were asked to pay the aforementioned outrageous fees for sundry issues including, non payment of waste disposal fees, waste disposal materials, indiscriminate dumping of refuse, use of illegal disposal agent, non bagging of waste, blocking , parking, damaging, littering, covering drainage with concrete/wood slabs, littering of wastes, dumping of refuse at unauthorized places, etc.
However, the management of the hotel told this reporter that they dispose of their waste without the assistance of the waste management board that bears Eastern Waste Disposal Board but claim to derive their power and legitimacy from the law that established the Imo State Waste Management Board.
Some Imolites who commented on the development called on the Hope Uzodinma administration to desist from inflicting more pain and hardship on the people in the guise of multiple levies amidst the prevailing hardship that the state government has done practically nothing to ameliorate”.
