LAHORE: The Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) has failed to keep the city clean during the last many months, exposing people to hazardous environment.

There are complaints of delayed waste collection, disposal and dumping by the company.

“Frankly speaking, the city has turned into a metropolis of garbage and officials seem to have failed to address the issue,” says a source. The government should, he says, admit its failure instead of blaming the previous rulers all the time.

The LWMC is a pioneer public sector solid waste management company in Punjab that was formed under section 42 of the Companies Ordinance, 1984 in March 2010 after the City District Government of Lahore’s SWM wing allegedly failed to deliver. Following formation of the company, Lahore’s then MCL administrator handed over the assets (human resource, equipment, machines etc) of the SWM wing to the company in 2011. There is an increasing number of complaints about the city’s garbage problem due to many issues such as non-payment to the contractors, rusty machinery, repeated transfer of the managing directors, NAB inquiries, and reconstitution of the board of directors (BoD).

“In the last six to seven months, the company lost two MDs, one of them was transferred after he fell out with the Lahore DC on the issue of cleanliness. Two MDs of the company are facing interrogation by NAB while another fled abroad due to fear of the accountability watchdog,” says a source.

He says cleanliness trucks, machines and equipment have become obsolete. “In the beginning, 95 per cent of the machinery was on roads to clean the city most of the time. But now 65pc machinery is in the field so it is causing delay in clearing the areas having garbage heaps,” he says.

He says the field sanitary staff is also facing delay in payments of salaries that is leading to growing unrest.

The official says the LWMC is currently passing through a phase of hiring new contractors and the cleanliness issue may continue by end of March. “The new contractors will surely bring new machinery and efficiently work,” he says.

LWMC’s BoD chairman Riaz Hameed Chaudhry admits there are issues due to the transition period the company is passing through these days. “The contractors have been given one-month extension and we have started short-listing new contractors,” he says.

Applications will be sought for four zones again since those who had earlier shown interest have withdrawn their offers,” he says.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2020