It has come to our notice from a section of the media the purported declaration by the Ondo State Ministry of Environment accusing ZL Global Alliance of inefficiency in waste management in the state. Ordinarily, we would have kept our cool over the matter but for the obvious distortion of facts and outright hypocrisy of the government in concealing its untoward attitude to the contractual agreement it has with ZL Global Alliance.
How on earth will the Ondo State Ministry of Environment that fails to pay as and when due turn around to accuse the partner in a contract of ineffectiveness? It is nothing short of hypocrisy, insincerity and outright wickedness. It has always been on record, perhaps because of a day like this, how the Ministry of Environment fails to pay for public waste management on the supposed 30-day cycle. This has always had its effects on the activities of the stakeholders in the chain of events.
What the government has also failed to make public is the outright ineptitude of Waste Management Authority in effecting effective monitoring and enforcement but only keenly interested in waste collection which is not within its purview any longer as prescribed by the contract. The agency has also failed to address the rapid decrease of the number of Private Sector Participants, PSPs, who were initially servicing streets and communities adjoining to public waste routes, no matter how ineffective they were, but they are no more in operation.
Succinctly put, the contractual agreement between the Ondo State government, through the Ministry of Environment, and ZL Global Alliance remains subsisting. What happened was a temporary stoppage of operation due to the failure of the Ministry of Environment to effect payment to our company since last year December. It should be noted that this year, 2024, there has not been any inflow of payment from the Ondo State government to ZL Global Alliance at all, and the first quarter of the year is already coming to a close.
It is therefore surprising that the Ministry of Environment is coming up with flimsy issues when in the actual sense it knows the truth about the operations of ZL Global Alliance in relation to the waste management contract between the duo.
Information at our disposal, however, is that the Ondo State governor, Hon. Lucky Aiyedatiwa, has graciously approved payment to ZL Global Alliance for the month of January and efforts to effect the payment, we learnt, are already in top gear. It is therefore funny that the Ministry of Environment is acting contrary to such efforts.
For us, once arrears payments are made, as we can no longer borrow to service the government, we will return to site as we remain committed to our avowed responsibility of keeping Ondo State cleaner and greener.
e-signed
Dr. Abiola Bashorun, FCICN
GMD/CEO, ZL Global Alliance