Ogun Govt Warns Market Leaders, Traders Against Indiscriminate Refuse In Markets Don’t Turn Your Markets

ABEOKUTA – Ogun State Waste Management Authority (OGWAMA), has warned market leaders and traders in the state to stop depositing waste illegally inside their markets which will later turn to heaps of waste or dumpsites which constitutes environmental and health hazards in their markets or have them shuin the overall public interest.

Special Adviser to the Governor who doubles as Managing Director of OGWAMA, Hon. Farouk Akintunde gave the warning after the evacuation of age-long waste deposits at the Farmers Markets, Solu Road in Ifo and Mamu Market in Ifo and Ijebu North Local Government Councils Areas of the state.

According to him, a situation where markets leaders dump waste inside their markets instead of depositing them at designated points for proper evacuation by government-licenced Waste Collectors is not only unacceptable but constitutes environmental and health nuisance to the market.

“Aside from these,these heap of waste exposes food items sold at these markets to avoidable contamination which could lead to possible food- poisoning which may lead to health challenges to the general public thereby exposing residents of the state to undesirable diseases.

“Markets operate in a clean environment with proper waste management and not a haven for illegal waste deposits because it is a public place where we all buy what we consume. Exposing what we consume to waste is not acceptable and will not be tolerated under any guise whatsoever.

“The state government will therefore not fold its hands and allow a few market leaders and traders to expose our food items to avoidable health problems due to their carefree attitude to waste evacuation in their markets which in the first place ought not to be with OGWAMA’s constant meetings with market leaders across the state government on the importance of proper waste evacuation and management,” Akintunde added.

He, therefore, warned the market leaders of the two markets to coordinate their members for better and proper market sanitation as the state government after the evacuation of the age-long waste through OGWAMA in their markets will not want them to go back to the old past adding that any return to the past will lead to the closure of their markets in the overriding public interest.