AEPB seeks strengthened collaboration with sanitation stakeholders – Official
NAN-AE-8
Collaboration
By Tosin Kolade
Abuja, Feb. 16, 2018 (NAN) The Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) has expressed its willingness to collaborate with the National Task Group on Sanitation (NTGS) to improve hygiene practices and environmental protection in the FCT.
Mr Ibrahim Mukhtar, AEPB’s Head of Information and Outreach, told New Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday that the agency was striving to stamp out indiscriminate dumping of wastes in the city centre.
He said that the AEPB Act of 1997, which set up the AEPB, made the agency the sole body to manage environmental waste and clear refuse from the city.
Mukhtar said that the newly constituted management board of AEPB had a clearer mandate, while the activities of the agency had been extended to cover all the six area councils of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He, therefore, said that the collection of sanitation levies by faceless persons in the area councils had to stop.
“The AEPB now has a new board; its activities have now been extended to the area councils to manage the environment.
“We are now saying that it is an offence for people in the area councils to go about harassing people for levies for the environment.
“That is why we want other sanitation stakeholders to partner with us to make our mandate work,’’ he said.
Mukhtar stressed that successes recorded in efforts to promote human health and child survival were seriously hampered via indiscriminate disposal of waste.
He called on the stakeholders to support the government in its efforts to expand the citizens’ access to potable water supply and protect the environment from filth.
He, however, urged FCT residents to also desist from throwing garbage into manholes, roads, empty places or illegal refuse dumpsites.
Mukhtar said that the board was putting some measures in place to ensure the proper management of all the waste dumpsites across the FCT.
He, however, warned that the government alone could not provide all the basic sanitation facilitates which the citizens needed.
He said that the scaling up of sanitation and hygiene projects across the country required the collective efforts of all the citizens. (NAN)
TAK/MOL/OOK
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Edited by Mustapha Lamidi and Dayo Komolafe