The Mayor of Port Harcourt, Allwell Ihunda says all available measures and resources would be deployed to restore the Garden City status of Port Harcourt.

Ihunda said this while playing host to a delegation of the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Eco who paid him a courtesy visit at the City Council, Port Harcourt recently.   

Represented by the Secretary to the Port Harcourt City Local Government Council, Chile Owuru, the PHALGA Chief Executive Officer disclosed that the Council under his leadership spends about N800,000 daily on waste disposal and sanitation.

Ihunda commended the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Eco for their expression of concern over the refuse debacle, noting that the club is the only organization that has visited the council to offer its assistance in ending the menace, assuring that his administration was taking aggressive steps to salvage the situation across the city.

“Upon realizing that there are no refuse dump sites in PHALGA, the Council created some, one at the Njemanze area of the city.”

“Part of the measures the Mayor has adopted is making every government appointee in the Council an automatic member of the Sanitation Committee with the responsibility of monitoring waste disposal in their neighborhoods.”

Earlier, the President of the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Eco, Emem Okon had informed the Port Harcourt Mayor that the club was in his office to show concern over the wastes ravaging parts of the metropolis and explore mutual avenues of checkmating the ugly situation.

She explained that the Rotary Club of Port Harcourt Eco is the first Rotary Club in West Africa and the second in Africa whose key focus is environmental protection and conservation.

Okon, who is also the Executive Director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, lamented that “it is dangerous to allow wastes liter everywhere on the streets and roads in the Garden City”, adding that if steps were not taken to immediately evacuate the wastes, there is the possibility of diseases’ outbreak with devastating impact on the vulnerable ones, especially, women and children in this era of COVID-19 and smallpox pandemic.

She commended the Port Harcourt Mayor for taking urgent steps in ensuring the city gets back its Garden City status.

Checks by Kristina Reports revealed that the Council machinery was already afield evacuating refuse in different parts of the city as trucks were seen at various locations clearing up garbage from various receptacles and road sides.