Abia Govt. announces plans to commence house-to-house refuse collection
Abia State Government (ABSG) says its State Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA) is now focusing on the next level of waste management.
The Commissioner for Information, Prince Okey Kanu disclosed this in Government House Umuahia, Monday, while briefing the press on the outcome of this week’s State Executive Council meeting presided over by Governor Alex Otti.
He explained that the new waste management process entails the modern collection of waste at the point of generation, adding that it would focus on residential areas and business premises.
According to him,
“The state government has made very tremendous progress in terms of environmental sanitation and cleanliness of our public spaces through the activities of ASEPA.
“ASEPA is poised to run a hybrid that will involve central collection of waste in places such as markets and in some specific areas with high traffic, population and of course narrow or arterial roads.
“They (ASEPA) are also on the verge of implementing their new tariffs and rates across the state. The State government will some way offer some assistance in this regard, because waste disposal is seen as a social service .
” However, the citizens will to a reasonable extent, bear some burden in terms of paying some tariffs for waste disposal, services, to make the process more viable and efficient, Prince Kanu stated.
Prince Kanu sought the assistance of the members of the public to help ASEPA and other agencies of government to monitor government’s assets against the activities of social deviants.
“In this wise, they need to monitor the activities of scrap dealers who tamper with ASEPA buckets.
“We have instances of scrap dealers who steal or remove ASEPA buckets, so we need members of the public to take ownership of these assets and help in monitoring the activities of such unscrupulous individuals in the society.
“They also need to be wary of some criminals and members of a syndicate who defraud members of the public in the name of ASEPA.
“We are using this opportunity to encourage members of the public to report suspected cases of extortion of people to the Harmonized Task Force and other law enforcement agencies.,” Prince Kanu stated.
The Commissioner for Information informed that the planned movement of the law faculty of Abia State University from the Umuahia back to Uturu will commence by the end of this first semester.
“The new session and first semester commenced today the 3rd of March, 2025 and will end about the end of June.
“The movement before now was hampered by a number of reasons ranging from student examinations to issues of processes, procedures and logistics. The Umuahia campus also had some accreditation matters to deal with before the movement to Uturu.
“So as a right thinking government and one that listens to it’s citizens, the government allowed the Umuahia campus to deal with some of these issues while engaging in infrastructural upgrade needed to make the movement back to Uturu seamless and worthwhile.
Prince Okey Kanu further said that the University admitted about 6,246 fresh students into the first year, explaining that,
“That is a 48% increase over last year’s figure of 4,196. Interestingly, the quotas for law, medicine, pharmacy and nursing sciences were not exceeded: a situation that speaks to the new culture of governance and administrative discipline currently obtainable across government institutions in Abia state,” Prince Kanu stated.
He reiterated that the state government’s compulsory education policy is up and running and is being implemented across the length and breath of the state. Prince Kanu said as earlier announced, pupils in primary schools and students in junior secondary are not supposed to pay any type of fees including PTA fees, sports fees among others. He said that the heads of schools and principals are being paid monthly imprest with which to run their schools .
Prince Kanu also informed that the date for the Computer Based Test (CBT) for the ongoing teachers recruitment exercise would now hold on the 6th and 7th of March instead of the 5th and 6th earlier announced.
He also said that in terms of road infrastructure, the State government continues to record visible achievements in that regard, revealing that a total of 28 contract projects are ongoing while there are over 40 direct labour reconstruction and maintenance works going on across the state.
Contributing, the commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education Elder Goodluck Ubochi said that the essence of the shift in date by one day for the Computer- Based-Test was to enable government fix some of the challenges noticed especially in locating CBT centres across the state.
He said that there would be 2 CBT centres in each of the three senatorial zones , adding that government wants to use tomorrow (4th) to fix the challenges observed including identification of CBT centres where the candidates would take the exams.
Answering questions from newsmen, the General Manager Abia State Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA), Mr Ogbonnia Okereke said ASEPA and Ministry of Environment are working together to deliver on state government’s mandate of keeping Abia environment clean and healthy, adding that a big recycling company is setting up a plastic recycling plant in Aba which would be commissioned during the 2025 World Recycling Day holding on the 18th of March 2025.
He said the state government is partnering many organizations to set up similar processing and recycling plants in the state and explained the planned next level the government is taking waste management to.
“We started with collection (waste collection) so to speak, but now, we want to move into the next level at recycling. We are transmitting from a linear economy to circular economy in the area of waste management .
“What we are saying in essence is that instead of wasting the waste we can always find a way of something else we can do with it. We are in talks with different groups, different organisations to discuss how they can partner with us in these areas,” Mazi Okereke stated.
The Commissioner for Tertiary Education, Prof. Uche Emeh Uche and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ferdinand Ekeoma were present at the briefing.
OGECHI CHRISTOPHER/ DIVINE NWANKWO
Government House Press, Umuahia.
03 – 03 – 2025.