DELTA State Government is working on plans to issue an Executive Order for the arrest of property developers in the state capital territory who hire unregistered daily pay artisans to work on their sites.
The Chairman of Delta State Taskforce on Environment, Chief Godspower Asiuwhu, disclosed this during a hangout with Journalists at the NUJ Press Center in Asaba.
Chief Asiuwhu, who is also the Chairman of Inter-Ministerial Committee on the relocation of artisans, recalled that government was worried about the nuisance the artisans, who were scattered across the State Capital Territory constituted to the environment and directed that they be registered and issued with numbered aprons and ID cards for easy identification and control.
He added that the artisans were later relocated to Oko junction, on the Asaba-Benin expressway, from where property developers and others who needed their services were expected to hire them.
The former Commissioner for Environment said it had been observed that unregistered artisans had regrouped at Koka, Mariam Babangida, Akpu, Camp 74 and some other locations within the State Capital Territory, where property developers preferred to hire them, thereby denying the registered ones at Oko junction patronage.
On the ban on scavenging, the Taskforce Chairman noted that some of the operators could still be found around with sacks picking up cans and disused cartons, saying that such persons did not constitute any serious security threat and were free to operate.
He spoke on how hotels and eateries in Asaba, Warri, Effurun and other urban towns and cities across the state were polluting the environment by channeling their septic waste to the drains, even up to 500 meters away from their locations, and leaving people in the neighborhood with offensive odour.
Earlier, the Chairman, Delta State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Churchill Oyowe, said the hangout was designed to promote better understanding between those in authority and Journalists, with a view to letting the public know about their activities, achievements and challenges.
Comrade Oyowe described Chief Asiuwhu as a servant leader who had done well in all the positions he had held in government and assured him as the continued support of members of the Union in his new position.
