There is more to Lagos than urban life and fancy bridges.
The metropolis has a dark side and Christiana Falade knows this ugly side because she comes out by 5am daily to clear some of the mess that many residents do not get to see.
After four years of working as a street sweeper in Lagos, Falade has lost count of the number of times she has had to pack human faeces, used diapers and so on off the roads.
On a few occasions, she has escaped being narrowly hit by speeding motorists who got too close for comfort.
Street sweepers lament
Falade knows it is a dangerous job but she is a widow with four children to take care of. When she lost her husband to an accident four years ago, Falade knew it would be folly to be choosy.
But her troubles are far from over; for three months, Falade has not been paid her salary and life had become more unbearable for the 49 years old.
She works for one of over 100 service providers that the Lagos State Waste Management Agency contracted with the job of keeping the state clean. Although, Falade’s company has repeatedly assured her that other service providers and over 7,000 sweepers were also affected, and that the fault was from the state government and LAWMA, which had not paid them since January, it offered no comfort to her.
Her house rent is N3,000 monthly and her children’s tuition per term is about N36,000, in addition to other expenses.
Since she is being owed salary, Falade confessed that she has taken to begging for alms to survive and make sure her children do not starve.
“We are hungry, so now I beg for money,” she said.
“I do ‘Bambi Allah’ before my children can feed now. Some motorists take pity on me and give me money, which is what I’ve been using to buy the little food items that we eat. Street sweepers have not been paid since January and what we heard is that it is the state government that owes the companies that engaged us.”
The sweepers are paid N12,000 each monthly while their supervisors get between N25,000 and N40,000, depending on the company.
But while Falade has somehow been taking care of her children’s feeding, some other areas of the family’s life have been suffering.
“I have an arrangement with my landlord to spread my rent over a period of six months, but I have been hiding from him lately because I owe him monthly dues,” she said.
Similarly, Kemi Arowolo, another street sweeper, has been barely surviving the current hard times.
The single mother has been staying with her parents after her husband ran away, leaving her with their nine-year-old daughter.
“Now, I cry and cry at home,” said the National Certificate of Education holder in Yoruba and History from Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo State.
“I never dreamt of doing a job like this but I was left with no other choice when I could not get a job after five years of leaving school. I had wanted to go for further studies but could not afford it. Even the N12,000 that we are being paid is too little to take care of feeding, accommodation, my child’s welfare and so on. My child’s tuition is N15,000 per term and there are other bills to consider.”
During an emotional conversation with our correspondent, Arowolo called for an increment in the salary of street sweepers in the state, adding that they should also be paid promptly.
“It’s demeaning to pay people N12,000 for the job we do or not pay promptly; government and the contractors need to review our salaries upward to around N18,000 to meet up with economic realities,” she said.
A supervisor with one of the service providers, who identified himself as Mr. Olawunmi, confirmed the situation.
Olawunmi said service providers pay street sweepers from the payment they get from LAWMA, but that the last one they got was in January.
“I’ve also not collected salary for February, March and April because our bosses said that LAWMA has not paid them,” he said.
“It has not been easy for any of us but the street sweepers may be the hardest hit because many of them are widows, single mothers or aged.”
All the sanitation workers who spoke to Saturday PUNCH said they never experienced a situation like this under the previous government, but none of them was sure of the reasons for the delay.
A similar situation occurred in 2015 when street sweepers were owed between three and five months, which the state government blamed on restructuring.
Investigation showed that the current issue goes beyond the street sanitation to LAWMA’s other waste management services, including its Commercial department.
Trouble for PSP operators
LAWMA engages Private Sector Participation in its activities covering commercial refuse collection including industrial and medical wastes; domestic wastes; local policing; marine; street sweepers.
It was learnt that all the private sector participants in these areas are being owed one way or another by LAWMA.
For instance, there are over 300 registered and functional PSPs in the LAWMA’s commercial department and all of them are being owed by the agency.
LAWMA has in its record over 11,000 commercial premises from where it is meant to collect refuse weekly. It engages the commercial PSPs who collect the wastes at a cost depending on the size of the company involved.
The monthly dues paid by the companies for the service is shared between LAWMA and the PSPs on a ratio of 40 to 60. However, investigation shows that LAWMA owes the PSPs their part of the dues from December 2015.
Even the PSPs’ share of the payments for September, October and November 2015, which were recently paid to them by LAWMA deviated from the laid down arrangement.
From the information available, an additional 23 per cent was deducted by LAWMA from the September payment, 25 per cent from October payment and 27 per cent from November payment.
Also, a cushion from LAWMA, called ‘bridging’, which is due to PSPs operating in low income areas where compliance is poor has been delayed by up to six months.
A supervisor with one of the PSP operators, Mr. Rasak Amusan, said he was equally being owed salaries for over three months.
Amusan said since schools recently resumed for the current session, his two children had been unable to join their colleagues because he could not afford to pay their tuitions.
“My wife is a trader and she has been the one responsible for our feeding,” he said.
“But she is just a petty trader, so the income has been grossly inadequate to take care of our needs in the family. I pray every day that government will pay what it owes our company so that my salary can be paid.”
At a recent general meeting of the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria in Lagos, called to discuss the issue, which our correspondent attended disguised as a member, the operators threatened to go on strike.
At a point, the hall became rancorous and shouts of ‘strike’, ‘strike’ rent the air. It took the leadership of the association some time to persuade and convince the aggrieved members on the need to continue to dialogue with the authorities of LAWMA and the state government.
The aggrieved members had argued that over 85 per cent of the 16 metric tonnes of waste being generated in the state is evacuated by members of the association and that an industrial action over what they referred to as ‘cheating’ by LAWMA, would force the government to respond to their calls.
During the meeting, a female member of the association, shouted in anger: “This sector provides over 25,000 direct and indirect jobs, if we go on strike the government and the public will take our plight seriously.
“This government does not realise that the roads in the state are clean today because of the job we do; if we go on strike and the streets are littered, then it will pay us all our money.”
Some of the members of the association, who spoke to our correspondent, accused the leadership of LAWMA of fraud, which they said was gradually killing their businesses.
One of them who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some members of the association had died and that he was afraid for his life as well.
The source said, “Many of us have died of heart attack and I’m afraid that I might end up this same way if the situation does not change fast.”
According to the source, he had started the business with a bank loan, which he said he was starting to default on.
“My heart beats dangerously when my phone rings because I know that it may be from the bank,” he said.
“We own the trucks; we fuel, service and repair them. Then we pay our staff and then LAWMA pays us only 32 per cent of what comes in and takes the remaining 68 per cent. The initial arrangement is for us to take 60 per cent and for LAWMA to take 40 per cent, but we were paid about 32 per cent in each of the last three payments we got for September, October and November last year.
“LAWMA still owes us for December 2015 and January to April 2016 and we have no idea of when the money will be paid. At this rate, our businesses will die completely. We suspect that some sort of fraud is being perpetrated. There was no communication about the policy or the additional deductions.”
Another member of the association, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, blamed the LAWMA management under Mr. Olumuyiwa Adejokun, saying, “None of this ever happened under the old management, so I put the blame solely at the feet of the new management. It is fraudulent to be deducting an additional 27 per cent outside of the 40 per cent due to us.
“For all our cost of operation, what are we left with after the additional deductions? About 30 per cent! How can we run the business with that? A litre of diesel costs N135 and a Compactor (a type of vehicle used by the operators) costs N7m. Meanwhile, residents pay N100 per room and N750 to N1,000 on a flat. Yet, LAWMA wants to take all the money.
“The delay in payment also affects the business because it requires prompt payment to be successful. How can you be getting paid now for a service you rendered six months ago?”
Some of the operators also alleged that LAWMA officials deliberately want to push them out of business to bring in their relations and friends.
One of the operators said, “We heard that some of the top officials in LAWMA and some of their friends and relatives are also interested in this business. It must be that they are trying to frustrate us out of the business to give room for their people.
“The situation is depressing and it will eventually kill our businesses if it is not checked.”
At the meeting, the leadership of the association explained that negotiations were going on with the LAWMA management to resolve the issues.
According to the leadership of AWAN, one of the reasons given by the LAWMA management as responsible for the additional deductions is that some companies have not been paying their dues.
However, the claim was dismissed by some of the AWAN members present at the meeting.
One of them said in his area of operation, some of the companies have been complaining that LAWMA officials have not been coming to pick up their cheques.
“Some would call to say that they have not been seeing officials of LAWMA responsible for collection of cheques,” the source said, adding government’s failure to ensure enforcement should not be pushed to operators.
“One told me that the cheque was ready but that there was no one to pick it up. We are not going to give in to any additional deduction beyond the 40 per cent that LAWMA is entitled to. If it means going on strike and leaving litters on the streets of Lagos, we will do it. It is the government that controls the security agencies, so whose fault is it if clients are not paying?”
LAWMA reacts
However, in a telephone conversation with our correspondent, Adejokun denied the allegations of fraud, saying LAWMA was in the process of paying up its debts.
As regards the street sweepers, Adejokun said: “As we speak, we are sending out the cheques for their payments for January. It is true that we are in arrears and you know the way government operates, there are certain things that are being done. So we are on top of it and in the next couple of weeks, we are going to pay it all.
“We owe them and we are trying as much as possible to pay and we will pay; ditto to every other players in the sector. All our PSP operators will be paid. We will clear the backlog and move ahead, no doubt about that. That is an assurance.”
Speaking on the controversial additional deductions, he said, “For those handling commercial (wastes), when LAWMA collects money from the clients, we will send them 60 per cent of what we collect and hold on to 40 per cent for our own operations. But there is one thing they don’t know which has legal implications. Assuming we bill a client N100,000 and he pays N100,000, the onus is on us to give them 60 per cent immediately and keep the rest.
“But if we bill a client N100,000 and he pays N80,000, there is no way I’m going to give them 60 per cent of N100,000. I will give them the 60 per cent of the 80,000 that was paid. When the balance of N20,000 is paid, I will also give 60 per cent of that and take the rest.
“But what they want is that whether the clients pay fully or not, we should just give them 60 per cent of the bill. You cannot give what you don’t have.”
But our correspondent asked why it was not done like that in the past, Adejokun said, “In the past, what we generated internally was never part of what the government gave us as part of our budget. But now, our internally generated revenue is part of the budget, so things are not as they used to be.
“What I am saying in essence is that we will pay what we agreed to pay them. But the law says you don’t give what you don’t have. That way, neither of the parties will be shortchanged.”
Speaking on the possibility of a strike action by the operators, the LAWMA Chairman said the agency had been meeting with the leadership of AWAN.
He said, “We relate with their association because it is not easy for us to be meeting them from door to door. The association is aware of what I’m saying and we are also trying our best to make sure that we give them their right so that they can do their job. We don’t want a situation where any of them will complain that we are not playing our own role.
“For those doing domestic refuse collection, they are not paying but we have put in place a very strong enforcement mechanism that is making sure that they pay their money so that the services can continue and we can keep the state clean. The major issue is enforcement of payment and we have started doing that.”
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