Nigeria Content Online

The Lagos State
governor, Babatunde Fashola, on Thursday said that the state has
employed 300 additional sweepers to clean its waterways.

Mr Fashola
announced this at the opening of the 2010 Street Sweepers Workshop
organised by the Ministry of Environment in collaboration with the
Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA).

The governor also
presented wheelchairs to 10 physically challenged persons, out of the
25 engaged to sweep some of the pedestrian bridges in the metropolis.

The two-day workshop, which ends on Friday, has as its theme, “Cleaner Lagos, safety first”.

Mr Fashola
explained that the offshore sweepers would complement the over 10,000
street sweepers in the state, saying they were icons of change.

“You are critical
contributors to the improvement of our lives and healthy living and are
as important as doctors and nurses,” he said.

He said that various experts had been contracted to deliver papers on safety, a sign that the state government cared for them.

Mr Fashola also
presented certificates of performance, grinding machines and generating
sets to the best 10 sweepers in the state.

Ola Oresanya, the
Managing Director of LAWMA, said that 57 street sweepers lost their
lives in accidents along the highways since the inception of the
service in 2007.

“Health and safety
of lives on the roads have been the greatest challenges being faced by
the sweepers and that is why we have decided to focus on safety first
in this two-day workshop,” he said.