The Kwara State Government has said it is committed to ensuring the success of the Clean and Green project, which was started by the immediate past administration of Dr. Bukola Saraki.

The Commissioner for the Environment and Forestry, Mr. Anthony Towoju, said in an interview with our correspondent on Friday that the government was doing its best to ensure that Ilorin municipality and all the local government areas remained clean.

He, however, said the state capital had continued to remain one of the cleanest in Nigeria, adding that the state government would continue to deploy mechanisms to ensure a clean and beautiful state.

Towoju said contrary to insinuations in certain quarters, waste disposal bins had not disappeared in Ilorin municipality, as there were about 200 bins in the city.

"In tandem with the Shared Prosperity Agenda of Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed's administration, the governor wanted us to encourage public-private partnership. He believes that in the business of waste management, the private sector can equally key in, not only to create employment, but also be able to make some fortune from the business. That is why he has approved about 19 contractors to key into the business of commercial waste management.

"If you are not seeing the roro bins, those are the areas that we have earmarked for commercial waste collection business. We are covering just about 20 per cent of the city. We are still managing about 80 per cent as social service. In the areas where social service still prevails, we have the roro bins and street cleaners. The government is cleaning 100 per cent of the disposal of waste through our road bins, which will be evacuated to their sites."

The commissioner said the government had mapped out some areas in Ilorin for commercial waste management.

He said the commercial waste management firms contracted by the government would embark on door-to-door refuse collection and would charge the residents minimal amounts of money for the service.

Towoju said where the commercial waste disposal system had been introduced, residents should cooperate with the waste collectors to pay minimum of N750 a month and a maximum of N1,000 for commercial concerns as fees for disposing their wastes.

The commissioner said, "We have captured some areas. They are the entire GRA, Tanke, Unity Road and the entire Adewole Estate, where we believe that the elite are living. We believe that the residents in those areas are exposed to international best practices in waste management.

"It means that the contractors will be meeting them at their doorposts. It is door-to-door business of waste collection. What the residents need to do is to store their wastes in their waste bins. If they do not have, they can come to us through the Kwara State Environmental Protection Agency. We have waste bins that we can sell to them. The contractors will come according to their schedules and take the wastes to the dump site."

Towoju also called on the residents to continue to maintain good sanitary habits, adding that they should cooperate with the government and the refuse disposal contractors on new strategies aimed at ensuring efficient and effective waste disposal in the metropolis.

He, however, said that the government had problem of dump site, which was almost overwhelming it, having commenced work on two out of the four sump sites it planned.