By Raymond Ozoji, Awka
Anambra State Environment Commissioner, Engr. Felix Odumegwu, and the Transition Committee Chairman of Onitsha-South Local Government Area, Mr. Emeka Orji, are currently enmeshed in a supremacy battle over who takes custody of the revenue generated from waste evacuation at Fegge Housing Estate Onitsha.
While the Isuofia-born Onitsha-South TC Chairman maintained that it was within the purview of the Onitsha-South Local Government Authority to determine the contractor who evacuated waste in the area, the Environment Commissioner held that the Ministry of Environment was in-charge of the environment where the waste would be evacuated; hence it was within the jurisdiction of the Environment Ministry to determine and decide the contractor for waste evacuation in Fegge.
This is the complaint before the Anambra State House of Assembly brought by the lawmaker representing Onitsha-South One State Constituency Hon. Fred Chigozie Ezenwa for amicable resolution.
Ezenwa, who equally functions as the House of Assembly Committee Chairman on Environment, stated that a state government revenue facilitator called JK Okechukwu Anadozie Industries International petitioned the House of Assembly laying emphasis that the TC Chairman of Onitsha-South Local Government impounded the vehicle he contracted to evacuate waste in Fegge Housing Estate.
Ezenwa said the petitioner complained that the vehicle was taken to Onitsha-South Local Government Headquarters together with the occupants and thereafter taken to Fegge Police Station from Onitsha-South Local Government Headquarters, where the driver of the vehicle was locked up in the police cell but was later released in the night of the same day after several interventions.
He said that the truck which was impounded by the Onitsha-South TC Chairman since Monday last week and confiscated at Fegge Police Station has not been released as of February 1, 2024 when the petition was raised on the floor of the House of Assembly.
The lawmaker further disclosed that the story was that JK Okechukwu Anadozie Industries International got the contract from the Commissioner for Environment to facilitate the removal of waste in the Housing Estate.
That when he started work, the TC Chairman of Onitsha-South alleged that the work was already on his table, saying that he is the one to issue the authority and he has given the contract for waste evacuation in the Housing Estate to somebody else.
The lawmaker stated that when the Commissioner was called to intervene in the matter, he made it categorically clear that waste evacuation belonged to the Ministry of Environment and that the contract for waste removal in Fegge Housing Estate has been awarded to JK Okechukwu Anadozie Industries International.
As a result, the facilitator wrote to the House of Assembly through the Speaker for the legislature to treat the matter and prevail on the Onitsha-South TC Chairman to release his truck still confiscated at Fegge Police station on his orders.
Ezenwa however posited that his position on the matter was to call the warring factions to order to avoid breach of public peace. He said that the House of Assembly has summoned both the Commissioner and the TC Chairman on the next adjourned date to come and explain who is really in-charge of waste removal in the area.
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