THE ROLE OF THE INFORMAL SECTOR IN SUSTAINED
SANITATION SYSTEM TO PROTECT AND PROMOTE HUMAN HEALTH
By
ABIODUN A. B. DENLOYE, Ph. D
As an
Environmentalist, Environmental journalist and Environmental science lecturer/researcher
it is my utmost pleasure to be here as a guest speaker on this occassion of the
ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION/ADVOCACY
CAMPAIGN FOR THE INFORMAL SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY IN LAGOS STATE with the
theme – SUSTAINED SANITATION SYSTEM TO
PROTECT AND PROMOTE HUMAN HEALTH.
As you know, the
environment is the totallity (that is everything) that surround us. This means
our water (including borehole, well, rivers, streams, springs and even
channelized water and pipe-borne water), air, soil and so on. Even we ourselves
are part of our own environment, including our animals (including livestock or
pets) and our plants (including those we farm such as vegetables, crops and
orchards as well as ornamental plants). It is very important to keep all of
them safe and neat for our own personal and collective good. Regretably, while some of us take care of this
environment, others care less about it, mindless of if it is destroyed or not. This
explains why a forum like this is very good. I therefore thank the government
of His Excellency Governor Babatunde Fashola, SAN and congratulate the
Honourable commissioner of the Environment in this state, Mr. Tunji Bello for
bringing out together in this forum so we can share ideas and sharpen our minds
on our roles in environmental sanitation.
My duty here today is to address
you on “THE ROLE OF THE INFORMAL SECTOR
IN SUSTAINED SANITATION SYSTEM TO PROTECT AND PROMOTE HUMAN HEALTH”. The
informal sector in Nigeria refers to economic activities in all sectors of the
economy that are operated outside the purview of government regulation. This
sector may be invisible, irregular, parallel, non-structured, backyard, underground,
subterranean, unobserved or residual. Informal economic activities in Nigeria include a wide range of small-scale,
largely self-employment activities. Most of them are traditional occupations
and methods of production. Others include such financial and economic
endeavours of subsistence nature as: retail trade, transport, restaurant,
repair services, financial inter-mediation and household or other personal
services. Activities in the informal sector in Nigeria are highly dynamic and
contribute substantially to the general growth of the economy and personal or
household income. The informal sector in Nigeria can be divided into three sub-sectors namely
1. Productive sub sector
This includes all economic activities involving
production of goods. Agricultural
production, mining (excluding petroleum) and quarrying, small-scale manufacturing, building and
construction are included in this category. They are specifically identified in
food production, woodwork, furniture making, garment making, welding and iron
works and so on. Many of the artisans here in this gathering belong to this
category.
2. Service Subsector
This
sub-sector includes
repair and maintenance, informal education services, health services,
counselling services and
labour for menial work. Repairs and maintenance services include tailoring,
vehicle repairs and maintenance, tinkering, carpentry and servicing of var ious
household and commercial equipemen and appliances such as refridgerator and air
conditioners. The informal health services, especially
in the rural areas, include traditional birth attendants, herbalists and other
traditional medical practitioners. There are also traditional spiritualists who
offer counseling services.
3. Financial Subsector
The
most predominant type of informal finance in Nigeria is the “Esusu” (Ajo). The general practice is that esusu associations
contribute a fixed amount periodically (which may be daily, weekly,
monthly or an agreed interval)
and give all or part of the accumulated funds to one or more member(s) in
rotation until all members have benefited from the pool.
There is no doubt that the
informal sector of the economy in Lagos State interact with the grassroot and
consequently has a great role to play in the sanitation in the state. In this
matter (ie sanitation) we are mostly concerned with the production and service
subsectors. Workers belonging to these two subsectors are the ones mostly
interracting and conflicting with the environment in their daily operations.
Look around you, the tradeshops
and workshops are located scattered all over the place, albeit haphazardly,
without any particular order. We can
consider some of these artisans and their activities as examples at this forum
as follows:
a.
Automechanic
and allied workers: The auto mechanic, panel beaters, spray painters, air
conditioner and refridgerator workers and many more make use of any available
space in the street. The tradeshop are also not any better, in Lagos every
available space along the route of passersby is a potential shop. Man even
operate without shops. These are just to mention a few, it is pertinent to note
that the activities of these artisans and trades, as a matter of fact get the
environment polluted. For the mechanic workshop for instance there is hardly
any toilet facilty. Any available bush, abandoned vehicle, disused and dilapidated
building or any hidden corner around the worksop automatically becomes the
toilet for the mechanic master and apprentice alike to urinate and defeacate. The
clients too are not exempt; they fillow suit as soon as nature calls. That the
air around these artisan workshops is rented with urine odour and decaying
feaces is saying the obvious. What is
even more worrisome is the gale of unservicable vehicles that are deliberately
abandoned in the mechanic workshop. Neither the owner nor the mechanic disposes
of them. Such vehicles soon become the sign that shows the type of vehicle that
artisan is specialized in. I must tell you that I often think differently.
Every abandoned vehicle in the mechanic workshop tell the story that that the
artisan in question failed to solve the problem of the vehicle and the
bankruptcy of the owner. But you as the mechanic, should you not ask the owner
to come and cart the vehicle away?
b.
Building
and Construction Workers: Artisans whose work centre around buildings and construction
works such as bricklayers, painters, tilers, plumbers, electricians carpenters
etc are not any better. In their daily services, the arena of work is usually
left very filthy with cigerette butts, sachet water bags, different kinds of
nylon and paper most of which are soon carried by wind or other dispersal agent
and scattered all over the place. Rubbles of tiles, paint and paint buckets,
rollers, brushes, unused POPs, broken blocks and left over mortar (cement/sand
mix) are left behind even after the completion of the work. These deface the
environment in no small way.
c.
Refridgerators
and air conditioner (RAC) workers: The RAC workers also have their
own share of roles in spoiling (polluting, defacing and littering) the
environment. These include the household and auto RAC workers. You will not
need to look around the shops for too long before you see the various sizes of
disused fridge cabinets, spent gas cans, condensers and different other parts.
Some of these are even the insignia indicating that this is the workshop of the
RAC worker. The environment would be better without these litter.
d. Vulcanizers: Talking about the insignia of the
workshop, the vulcanizers are equally guilty. The first sign you see in his
workshop are disused tyres as though they are for sale, but no, they are only
indicating that you have a vulcanizer
there wether present or absent at that particular time. They you can see the
water trough which is usually a cut section of a tyre containing water used to
detected leakage points on tyres.
e. Hair Dressers and Beauticians: The shops of many hairdressers are often located
near gutters or water outlet paths. This is ostensibly to allow them easily let
out their waste water. But where do these gutters and canals lead? No where, in
many cases? They have been blocked and consequently become receptacles for
verious pathogenic micro organisms.
f. Printers: Printers are a major environment polluters. These they do in two ways
namely improper disposal of paper off-cuts as well as lithographic films and in
particular disposal of waste print inks. The lithographic films are not
biodegradeable, they therefore remain undestroyed over a very long time.
Indiscriminate disposal of the waste ink cause pollution of rivers, streams and
other water bodies. Ink generally conatins Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs),
heavy metals amd non-renewable resources. The VOCs are released as ink dries
with the evaporation of the isopropyl
alcohol (IPA) used as a damping solution evaporates at room temperature. The VOCs
are colourless, odourless gases which are harmful to the environment, they
contribute to global warming and the production of ozone, as well as being
hazardous to pressroom workers where they cause damage. These printing ink are
also toxic to fish and other aquatic life. When such fish are eaten by humans,
we also get the chemicals.
The Role of Informal Sector in Sustained Sanitation
From the foregoing, it should be clear to us all
that the informal sector have roles they play in polluting and causing problems
for the environment. By the same token, workers in the informal sector of the
economy also have roles to play in sustained environmental sanitation. These
can be highlighted as follows:
1. Self Education and mass awareness. We must recognize our negative attitudes and behaviours that introduce
filth and pollutants in the environment. Some of these include indescriminate
defeacation and urination in the sorroundings. I have noticed that government
is doing a lot in the aspect of provision of public toilets in garages parks
and markets. We need to identify these toilets and ensure that we use them. In
this regard, there is need for governnemnt at variours tiers to do more, but
the ones they have done, let us discpline ourself, teach our selves to use them.
These can be done through the various mechanic associations, market
associations and so on. The negative attidtudes also include inproper disposal
of waste materials and parts. With respect to the different trades, these need
to be identified and spoken about in our meetings.
2. Enforcement of Public Hygiene. When we have identified the ways we introduce filth into the sirrounding,
let us be our own watchdog and enforce strict compliance to hygiene norms. This
include proper cleaning of our work place or shop or market stalls regularly,
particularly at the end of each day’s work or trade.
3. Use of designated disposal points or facilities. It is important for us to create designated
disposal points or facilities. There are recognized waste dumps which government
have created. We must ensure that these dumps are used to dispose of our
wastes. I understand that you cannot use these waste dumps directly but
throught the services of PSP waste managers who come to carry them at
intervals. This is a very commendable initiative by government. Gentlemen and
ladies, you must pay your waste disposal bills as you are served without
default. In addition it is important that in our shops and places of trade or
work we must make provision for disposal containers which can be securely
covered or the mouth tied if it is a nylon bag. It should not be easy for pets,
livestock or children to tamper with the waste bin and spill its content.
4. Waste Recycling. This
is a very important way to reduce our waste and management them. The shops of
workers like the mechanics are rid with vehicles that are no longer
serviceable. Such vehicles should be disposed of as scraps to buyers who would
in turn use different parts for other things. Some workshops are visited by
vedors who come around to buy various recyclable parts. This should be
encouraged. The mechanic villages for example can have arrangement with these
buyers to come at regular intervals that are not far from one another.
5. Proper Signages. We
must stop the display of the items we work on to indicate our presence. Proper
signages must be displayed as prescribed by government. All the artisan
associations must include this in the rule books and enforce them.
6. Clearing of Vegetation and rubbles. All the weeds and other undesirable vegetation
around the artisans must be cleared at regular intervals. These weeds serve as
resting points for various cockroaches, mosquitoes, ants and some other biting
insects which serve as vectors of various diseases. These insects invade the
homes and other dwelling placed and become nuissance as they cause various
diseases including malaria. Similarly the weeds habour rodents, especially
rats. Rats will not only destroy belongings, but also transmit diseases such as
Lassa Fever. Also building rubbles and such unwanted materials should be
cleared aware from building sites especially after construction work.
7. Strict adherence to environmental sanitation regimes. The markets have environmental sanitation
days just as homes generally observe sanitation days as fixed by government.
These sanitation days must be strictly observed. Drainages must be cleared and
the waterways cleared to allow the flow of the water. Blocked drainages serve
as breeding ground for mosquitoes and water holes for rats.
There are other ways which time will not permit us to mention here today.
But if we play our own roles in ensuring
sanitation in the above ways, we should be able to maintane a neat and safe
environment.
Thank you.
DENLOYE is the Director, Centre For Entrepreneurial Studies, Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos.
ADDRESS DELIVERRED AT LAGOS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY DURING THE ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION/ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN FOR THE INFORMAL SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY IN LAGOS STATE WITH THE THEME – SUSTAINED SANITATION SYSTEM TO PROTECT AND PROMOTE HUMAN HEALTH ORGANIZED BY THE LAGOS STATE MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT, ALAUSA, LAGOS.
