LAHORE: Failure of the Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) in preparing a new waste management plan is not only delaying hiring of new contractors, but also worsening the cleanliness situation in the provincial metropolis.

Since those entrusted with the task seem least bothered about resolving the cleanliness issues being faced by the Lahorites for the last six months or so, the LWMC Board of Directors (BoD) has also expressed concern over its management for not following its directions, especially about the officials who failed to get the new plan finalised despite allegedly making partial payments to a consultant firm.

“The HR (Human Resource) committee chairman inquired about the implementation status of its previous recommendations. He showed concern over non-implementation of the recommendations of the committee regarding additional charge of general manager (operations) to an officer (name not mentioned to protect identity) despite the fact that the HR committee declared the order No1056/HR/lwmc/of September 1, 2020, void ab initio. He was of the view that an inquiry regarding the status of a joint venture of transaction adviser is pending that has to be completed at the earliest, as the officer is the main suspect in the inquiry,” reads minutes of a recent BoD meeting.

The LWMC, presently, has a waste management model to cope up with the growing cleanliness issues. The existing plan, according to official sources, is no more effective given the current needs, since it expired in March 2020 after expiry of the eight-year contract of two international (Turkish) contractors in the same month.

The existing model that includes the strategy/SOPs for a shift from Lahore’s outdated solid waste management system to a modern one, comprising mechanical sweeping, washing, waste lifting, transporting, dumping etc with new machinery/equipment, made reportedly by a state-owned Istanbul-based Turkish organisation in 2010, had been rendered ineffective with the expiry of the contract.

Moreover, the contractors also didn’t replace the old machinery/equipment with the new ones because of various technical and administrative issues related to delayed payments worth billions. The slow bidding process for hiring new contractors is also an issue.

Resultantly, the cleanliness situation of the city started worsening, forcing the government to extend Turkish contractors’ contract time to time. The current contract extension will expire on December 31, 2020.

But the cleanliness situation did not improve despite the fact that one of the two contractors rented some machinery/equipment from the market after the company BoD allowed it to do so.

Side by side, the company hired a local firm for completing Rs15 million project for preparation of a new plan with a strategy to exit the existing one. But, the local firm didn’t complete its work despite receiving half of the total payment. The BoD ordered an inquiry against those responsible for it, including an officer to whom the management had also entrusted with additional charge of general manager (operations). Since the inquiry is still underway, the firm is yet to submit the plan mandatory for initiating the process for hiring new contractors.

“In this situation, it seems that the company will have to extend the contract of the existing Turkish contractors once again since there is no new plan or model etc at hand. And when the company will go with the existing contractors, who have no new machinery, the issues related to cleanliness will continue growing in the coming months,” the official, who requested anonymity maintained.

When contacted, LWMC Managing Director Imran Ali Sultan told Dawn he had already made three operation plans (A, B and C) on his own and shared these with the company board. “But I cannot disclose these at the moment. However, I assure Lahorities that there would no cleanliness crisis after December 31, 2020,” he claimed. “But, I admit that the cleanliness situation in Lahore is not as good as it used to be. It happened since the contractors’ machinery has completed its life,” he added.

He said a joint venture (JV) of two companies had started work on preparation of a new plan. Of the total 10 reports the JV was supposed to submit to the LWMC on the subject, six had been furnished. But, later both the firms had disagreement over some issues and they approached the court which delayed the remaining reports, he said.

He said the inquiry related to the officer who was given additional charge of GM, is also linked to the court’s decision. So the company was waiting for the court decision in this regard, he added.

“But, we shouldn’t stop working in such a situation. That is why I have prepared some plans to run the operational affairs related to waste management from January 1,” Mr Sultan said.

According to insiders, the officer was not willing to make the plan public, apprehending political intervention and resulting complexities.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2020