Kehinde Bamigbetan, commissioner for Information and Strategy, Lagos State, in this interview with ZEBULON AGOMUO, Editor, spoke on some current knotty issues in the state ranging from the controversial Land Use Charge Law to the cleaner Lagos initiative and the new transport scheme proposed by the state government. Bamigbetan, who took his time to carefully explain the truths, half truths and outright falsehood making the rounds in the polity, said that the current administration was focused on project delivery and was doing everything in the interest of the people and never, for any personal aggrandisement. Excerpts:
It appears your appointment coincided with the trying moment, so to say, of the current administration in Lagos. How have you been weathering the storm?
Well, one has been well prepared by experience. First, the constituency is my constituency, having been in journalism since 1988 and having gone, round the media- former sub-editor with the Guardian; former deputy News Editor with the Vanguard; head of the political desk of the Punch, and Political Editor of the Concord. One of the things that make the job easier for me is that I can take my case to many of those who are in position in the media today because of our long years of relationship. I relate with them excellently. The second thing is that Lagos State itself has earned a lot of credibility as a provider of projects. Many of the projects have largely impacted on the lives of the common people. So, the perception of the people of Lagos State government is quite high. Number three is that over the years I have been able to develop myself to be able to operate and have a good track record in political communication. As we speak, I happen to be the president of Association of Political Consultants in Africa. That also gives me an intellectual base to be able to identify the problems; proffer solutions and execute solutions appropriately and adequately. So, I will say, that has been my strength in managing the current issues.
You have been talking to individuals and many groups in the last two weeks since the issue of the Land Use Charge came up, and the controversy surrounding it. Honourable Commissioner, where are we on the issue as of today?
When we began the process, we started with the House of Assembly. It has 40 lawmakers elected by constituents across the length and breadth of Lagos. It was an Executive Bill and they took the bill through all the readings; had a public hearing and it was safe for us to believe that having had a public hearing and passed through the normal legislative process; the law is the law that represents the wishes and aspirations of Lagosians. However, following the implementation of the law and the feedback from the public, that because of the current economic conditions the increment was not affordable to many of them, we met again as Lagos State Executive Council and for over five hours debated how we could give the law a more human face, and that is how we came about more reviews, particularly for properties used for commercial purposes where our research and engagements showed the highest level of misgivings was displayed and we decided to give them 50 percent more in terms of relief. So, those who use their property as owner-occupier but also have 3rd party rentals, we give them additional concession of 25 percent. This covers manufacturing industries. That would also push off the effect of the hardship they claimed they were experiencing. An owner-occupier will also enjoy 15 percent additional relief if he pays within two weeks. We opened up the window to the whole year so that anytime owner-occupier pays within the year he will still enjoy additional relief of 15 percent. What it means therefore, is this, you have an additional general relief of 40 percent and you now have as an owner-occupier another additional relief of 15 percent. That is about 55 percent and it means that what you are going to pay at the end of the day comes down. In fact, from our own calculations if you are living in a N20million-worth house and you are to pay N9,200 before (Nine thousand two hundred naira) as owner- occupier, you will now pay about N7,000(seven thousand naira). We have also come out with a guide from N10million up to N200 million, so that the public can see transparently that the basic principle of the tax reform is progressive; that the more you earn, the more you should be able to pay. We also re-emphaised the point that all these funds are meant for public infrastructure. Which means we are only helping you to recycle the money back to where it is needed most– public schools, public hospitals, good infrastructure, security- those things that make life meaningful for us in this environment. So, today we are happy; more people are responding; more people are paying and we believe that we have finally reached a nice point of interaction with those of our people who complained against it.
When the issue came up; there were different insinuations. While some people alleged that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was trying to use the avenue to mop up money to fund his re-election in 2019, some others also wondered why the government would go into such sensitive and contentious area when elections are by the corner. Was there any merit in any of these arguments?
There cannot be any merit in them because of the credibility of the government. The government has demonstrated ab initio that its eyes are focused on project delivery. The government has surprised many motorists and pedestrians and other users of our roads that it could widen the roads; create new ones and decongest most of the gridlocks on the road. The government has shown that it has great idea about how this state should look like; that it is currently constructing a major project in Oshodi- a major transportation interchange. It has also shown that it keeps its promise. Government promised to provide N25 billion at the rate of N1.25billion every year to provide loans at cheap rates to people looking for capital. At the moment over 300,000 (Three hundred thousand) people have benefited from the loan advance by the Lagos State Government.
Many small businesses struggling to survive are now employing two, three, four, five persons and we are now going further into encouraging and empowering artisans to develop new skills and giving them startup funds. This government has put in place N500 million disability fund to enable disabled people who would have found it difficult to get bank credit to access fund so that they would not have to be living a life of dependency; they now add value to their lives. This government made a promise that it would go into local areas where they have been clamouring for roads and make a change there. So, government has embarked on, and completed 114 roads in the nooks and crannies of Lagos State at the rate of two roads per a council and delivered successfully such roads. It is now embarking on the second phase of 181 roads. A government that has therefore, shown that its purpose and focus is governance, project-delivery and better services cannot now be the one that will be shopping for funds; I do not think that there is any credibility in that kind of proposition. I think people should look towards the fact that the government has used the funds it has got so prudently (it is the only government working effectively in the country today as acknowledged by everybody). The government has shown smartness and wisdom in creating LakeRice in collaboration with Kebbi State, so as to show that our import dependency on rice can be reversed to the advantage of our local economy. If this kind of person is the one you have sitting on top of your money and helping you manage your taxes then the idea of using it for political purposes does not arise. It is totally implausible because, why would you want to tax people because you want to win an election? That argument does not stand at all and I therefore, think we should dismiss it with a wave of the hand. The second leg of the argument that why would this government that wants to win again in 2019 still go into such an issue? Again it shows you the level of courage of the government. Courage does not come easy.
Two, it shows a sense of honesty and sincerity. If you are actually sincere and selfless, your own interest will not come before the interest of those you have offered to serve. The governor told the people he would allow his experience to work for them; that is what he promised the people; so you cannot now say that because election is coming, he will not continue to deliver. In fact, it is the other way round, the taxation thing is an element of showing legitimacy, showing a buy-in or testing the waters to see how far people can buy into his vision and the response. It could mean more infrastructure will be available; it could even make winning election easier because you would have seen what the government is using your money to do. So the general public should discountenance such arguments; they are false, they are fallacious and there is no truth in them.
The Ambode administration has been commended on many fronts, but the cleaner Lagos initiative appears to be giving the government bad name. There is filth all over the place. Is it an abandoned project; a project that was not well-thought through or is it an initiative gone awry?
People must first and foremost understand that waste management is a value chain, once you collect; you must deliver. That value chain starts with the collection of waste and ends with the deposition of waste at land fill site. Now, when we started, part of the understanding with the Visioncape is that we would have a new land fill site; it has acquired 80 acre facility in Epe. It has gone in there, prepared. It has been able to provide the re-engineered land fill site. In other words, a major achievement has been recorded in the acquisition of the landfill site, the re-engineering of the landfill site and it is now available to take waste from any part of Lagos. That is achievement number one. But to now collect the waste and bring it back to the land fill site is where there is some logistics challenge. The challenge relates to the character of the Nigerian economy and the fact that it is still strictly and commercial capitalist system. And because it is not industrial, you therefore find out that in terms of machine production, it is clearly very deficient. We do not have automobile manufacturing companies in this country; meanwhile, that company requires about 600 compactors to be produced within a space of six months. It means that, it has to go and place the order and the country producing it will be pushing it I gradually. Out of the 600 compactors about 200 are already now in Lagos. More shipments are still being expected. So, what we see as a gap in collection is a result of the inadequacy of the equipment that they already have. As more equipment come, they will cover the state. But as a temporary measure, they have gone into partnership or relationship with other waste management collectors and that is why you find that the situation where we were in January is not where we are today. If you analyse the situation across board, you will also see a pattern; you will see that where the density is low, the incidence of not picking of waste is very small. Where the density is high like in Mushin for example, you will see that the effort to evacuate waste is giving them a harder challenge to do. What compounds waste in those areas is that those are also where you have most of the markets. Now one would also need to understand the character of our markets. Our markets receive high degradable materials; about 6am every morning. By 11am once they are not bought they become waste. So we are having mountains of waste in those areas. To respond to that challenge is why they have got talking with the waste management collector. So, we can see clearly that there is still gap in that system. So, our position is that since we know the scenario, we know the template, we know that the resource gap is not the problem with those managing the waste but because of the fact that we do not produce the machines here.
The lesson therefore for us is that we should create a Nigeria where the manufacturing sector is strong enough to be able to produce these things so that people who want to do this kind of work don’t need to go abroad and wait endlessly for the manufacturers to be able to ship them in. But in the meantime, the mitigating effort is to continue to do a 24-hour evacuation of wastes and continue to appeal to people that very soon we are going to be able to cover the field. Part of the mitigating effort is to have the distribution of bins. Bins are to be distributed to homes so that at the end of every year, you pay an administrative charge. It reduces what you used to pay to the PSP system; at least per unit of housing. Now, they are also trying to bring in a local company that can produce the bins. They are also battling with that now. So, the two components part of the system are currently not meeting their supply needs. The compactors and the bins – and they are the ones that are critical to the collection of waste segment of this value chain. So, as soon as that is achieved, I will assure you that all these things will be a thing of the past.
The plan to phase out the yellow commercial buses with the introduction of mass transit buses into the transportation system will obviously put many people out of their jobs. The drivers, the conductors and some others may be affected. What arrangement does the state government has to ensure that those that will be dislodged do not embrace unwholesome practices for sustenance, which could also breed another problem for government?
Let me say that we are bringing in 800 mass transit buses. What is the argument? The argument is that our roads are currently blocked because of these small buses that carry less number of passengers, but with the more capacity vehicles we are bringing, it means that fewer vehicles will be on the road. So the carriage will be higher and movements across areas will be faster so that traffic congestions will cease. That is the template. Now, with this template, there are certain issues to raise- the buses are not coming with drivers; it is from these yellow bus drivers that we will be able to get people who we will be able to train to drive these buses. So it will provide instant jobs for 800 drivers immediately they land. Two, there will be ticketers who right now, we call conductors under and yellow bus system; these people too will come into the system as ticketers which mean that you already have 1,600 (one thousand six hundred) coming into that system. Again, those vehicles require people to wash them and so some of those who now operate in the yellow bus system can be employed to wash the vehicles. It takes a minimum of two persons to wash a bus.
Of course, you know the buses need to be washed regularly to remain clean. Now, if you multiply 800 by another 2 you have 1,600 as washers. So, it has exponential value. Number two is that the phasing out is a gradual process. Once the buses are on particular routes- Ikeja and the Island to start with, it is only yellow buses on that corridor that will be affected initially. It is a win-win arrangement. That win-win thing is that for owners of the danfo who now want to buy into the new system, they will now invest in the purchase of some of those buses and allow the companies to run them for them and they make their money. So, you can as a matter of fact make more money from the BRT buses. The danfos that are very rickety will no longer be allowed to ply the road. However, all other danfos will operate (move) internally. They will still move on other routes to do their business. You will see Danfo operate in a place like Mushin, Ejigbo, Alimosho. The target is that we will have 5000 (five thousand) mass transit buses in the long run. So, the more additional buses come in, the more owners of the yellow buses may begin to invest in these new buses and therefore, the system has been made better for all of us. The yellow bus owners have been taken care of by this inclusion in the purchase agreement area. For the drivers of danfo, they have been taken care of in the fact that they will become the drivers of the BRT buses though with additional training and acculturation. For the conductors of danfo, they will become ticketers or washers of the new buses. So, everybody is being accommodated. By the new system, the government of Lagos State has provided a more organised system from the present chaotic one that we are witnessing. We are engaging all stakeholders.
Two weeks ago, the state government issued a warning to trailer and tanker drivers on Apapa Bridge that it was going to forcefully dislodge them if they failed to leave the bridge within a given period. A few days after the warning, there was a semblance of compliance, but that did not last as the vehicles are back on the bridge. The question is, is it lack of political will on the part of the government to enforce the order or what actually is the matter?
You know, what the experience has shown us is that the military still has a role to play even in a democracy. Sometimes, as democrats, as civilians there are some people or core sectors that are very difficult to control. The tanker and trailer drivers belong to that sector. So, you must have to use the authority of the armed forces. I am not too sure that the people who left are the people that are there now, because you know many of them come to the tank farm to lift their fuel. But what the Lagos State Government is doing is this, we discovered a tank farm at Orile which can take over 7,000 (seven thousand) trailers; we are now rehabilitating the park. If they are asked to move into that park coming to lift fuel will become easier than before. There is also the plan by the government to create depots by the shores so that instead of going to Apapa; if for instance you have depot or a barge on the Ikorodu beach – tankers can go and take the petrol and service Ikorodu. If such a thing is in four area of Lagos like that, it would help decongest Apapa axis. That is an alternative plan. We are doing everything possible to ensure that people do not provide dead weight on the bridges.
Although the issue of appearance of Alpha Beta in the Land Use Charge document has been described as a “mistake” or “mirage” and has been expunged; as the spokesperson of the state government, could you, either by way of apology or further explanation, tell us why the name appeared in the document in the first place?
What we have said is that it was an Executive Bill. In the bill taken to the House, there was a provision that there would be six (6) consultants to manage the Land Use Charge. There used to be three but the bill proposed six. The House of Assembly approved six. So, it was clearly egregious that one company was there. Number two, that company has never been involved in the Land Use Charge administration. So, it is outlandish, clearly outlandish for it to be there.
At the point it appeared, the document had not been gazetted and not yet in the public domain, so somebody must have gone to do some photoshop, using the current technology and tried to use it to give us a bad name. There is no place for that kind of thing within that law. It does not prescribe any company at all; it says six companies will handle it. You are talking about over 2 million houses. So, it cannot be done just by one company. So, it is outlandish, it is not the part of the law and we do not know who is responsible for it. We think it is plain mischief.
