Delta agency issues ultimatum to residents on sanitation
The Delta state Capital Territory Development Agency on Thursday issued a 21-day ultimatum to individuals, corporate and government agencies domiciled in the state capital to tidy up their environment or contend with the full weight of the law.
The ultimatum was issued at the stakeholders’ meeting between the agency, business owners and landlords in Asaba metropolis after the Director General of the agency, Onyemachi Mrakpor read portions of the Delta state Environmental Sanitation Law 2006
Mrakpor warned that “after this stakeholders’ meeting, we will be giving a 21-day ultimatum counting from now for you to tidy up your premises,” adding that upon the expiration of ultimatum, every defaulter would be tried by the mobile courts and made to pay stipulated fines or corresponding sanction as contained in the law.
According to her, a fine of N10, 000 and N50, 000 respectively, is for individuals and corporate entities found guilty of indiscriminate dumping of refuse and the erection of unapproved structures capable of causing obstruction or nuisance on highways.
She further stated that “the landlord or occupier of a tenement shall at all times keep their tenements and its surroundings together with the adjourning and connection drains, gutters and channels free of weeds, grasses, filth, refuse or any other waste matter, as failure to do so shall attract a fine of N10, 000 for individuals and N50, 000 for corporate bodies.”
Mrakpor regretted the unhealthy conditions of markets and abattoirs within the state capital, even as she decried the alleged nonchalant attitude of some government offices for not tidying up their premises.
She revealed that the agency is proposing an alternative means to make street trading better appreciated, rather than be a nuisance to the environment, while grocery stores would be remodelled and equipped with public sanitary facilities in strategic locations of the capital territory.
