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AEPB, Rightsizing Exercise And Operational Efficiency By Emeka Oraetoka
The momentary halt in the painful but necessary demolition of illegal structures in Federal Capital Territory [FCT] appeared to have afforded many Nigerians, resident in FCT, the opportunity to attempt a hard reconciliation of the circumstances of these demolished places-before and now, with a view to forming opinion. The consensus appears to be: “the once dirty locations in the Municipality have given way to beautiful green environment, where fresh air emanates to make life pleasurable”. This has however, meant that the organ charged with the responsibility of ensuring that FCT is not only clean, but environmentally friendly, must ensure that they live up to their responsibilities as failure to maintain clean and healthy FCT, may mean that there was no good justification for dem olishing the illegal structures abinitio.
Before now, information has it that Abuja Environmental Protection Board [AEPB] has in its kitty more than one thousand [1000] workers. In spite of this large army of staff, not much was known of them in terms of quality service delivery. Both solid and liquid sewage management was generally poor, the green areas were poorly managed too; refuse dump everywhere. According to reports, about 2 million Naira was been spent on diesel weekly. Overhead cost was simply outrageous. The resultant effect of this oversized work force was outrageous overhead costs; while FCT remained largely stinking as a result of mounting refuse heaps everywhere.
The belief in many quarters before now was that it was a sheer waste of time knowing the functions of AEPB; to talk of having anything to do with them as it were, was hard to imagine. Instead, many believed that Federal Capital Development Authority [FCDA] was the only establishment charged with the responsibility of overseeing the development of Abuja and associated problems. In a nutshell, nobody cares about AEPB and what it stands for. Although it has been reasoned that the newness of the board, was responsible for the poor environmental situation of FCT, from the perspective of obedience to relevant environmental laws. Military siege mentality was also said to be responsible for the poor state of FCT environmentally. It may be recalled that the board was established in 1997. It was probably the realization that Federal Capital City should be a model capital that Nigerians should be proud of, that spurred the minister of Federal Capital, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, upon assumption of office, to reposition AEPB for greater operational efficiency. Many have acknowledged that since the assumption of office of the current director of AEPB, Hajia Hadiza Abdullahi, the environmental circumstances of the Federal Capital City has greatly improved; though much still need to be done to attain perfect neatness, they also recognized.
According to the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE), reports on AEPB, which is currently on their Website, it said: government was going ahead with partial privatization on the board for the following reasons (a) over-bolted workforce not commensurate with output (2) inadequate billing and collection provides insufficient funds for sustainability and development in view of growing competing demands for government resources (3) the population of the federal capital territory is expected to be about 5 million in 2005, which AEPB may find even more difficult to service (4) private sector participation necessary for vibrancy (5) need to bring in funding other than from government. From the point of view of BPE, on AEPB, rationalizing of the over-bloated workforce becomes the only way to reposition the board for operational effic iency and productivity. To ensure private sector participation, the board had to concession its operation to them, in order to play supervisory role. Environmental analysts are of the view that with the downsizing of the work-force in accordance with government efforts at partial privatization of this all important board, we may witness the dawn of glorious era in terms of quality environmental circumstances of FCT.
They are also of the view that the current insinuations that the rationalization exercise was pure victimization of people from a certain part of the country, is simply baseless and only from those who are not only lazy, but are yet to come to terms with current realities in Nigeria. Reports have it that due diligence was followed in the pruning exercise. They also reasoned that rationalization is a logical consequence of privatization. For instance, Aluminum Smelter Company in Akwa-Ibom State and National Iron Ore Mining Company [NIOMCO] in Kogi State, have rationalized as a result of privatization exercises. The issue of Abuja Environmental Protection Board [AEPB] cannot be an exception, they submitted.
Emeka Oraetoka Information Management and Media Relation Consultant Wrote in from Garki-Abuja.
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