SUDDEN DEATHS HIT LAWMA!

 Seven Street Sweepers Die On Duty In January

. As Authority Approves Salary Increament

By Lanre Olaleye

The Ijora headquarters of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) has been thrown into confusion following the gale of sudden deaths of some of its street sweepers.

The Snoop Tabloid exclusively gathered that seven street sweepers have reportedly died on duty in January 2022. The victims comprise of three men and four women.

Investigation revealed that most of the victims are elderly with poor health conditions.

Most of the victims were said to have slumped on duty with heavy work load.

The high casualty rate recorded in the first month of the year, according to sources is a serious cause of concern to the Managing Director/CEO of LAWMA, Adejuwon Odumboni.

The gale of sudden deaths among the authority's street sweepers underlies the poor welfare package for its street sweepers.

According to findings, the authority is yet to provide insurance coverage for its over 20,000 workforce despite the daily risk most of them undertake sweeping major roads and highways across the state.

Aside this, the absence of clinical and health facilities for these sweepers is said to be grey point in the administration of waste management in the state.

This is against the meagre N25, 000 monthly salary paid to each sweeper who are constantly made to work longer hours at the risk of their lives.

Most of the victims, we gathered died as a result stress and exhaustion owing to longer hours of work. This became evident as there are overwhelming report of short-staffing at major routes across the state.

Sources close to the authority revealed that most LAWMA contractors, who are mostly politicians are fond of short-staffing sweepers on major routes to enrich themselves thereby making sweepers work for extra hours without adequate compensation.

Our source also revealed the recruitment of the elderly as street sweepers as another area of concern as most of the elderly have been found not to be physically and medically fit to stand the rigour of long hours of duty.

The development, we further gathered may have stampeded the management of the authority to approve an upward review of the sweepers salary beginning from N25, 000 to N35, 000 beginning from May 2022.

Though this is a cherry news to the sweepers but many of them still expect more as they argued that the absence of comprehensive  health and insurance packages have left much to be desired.

Currently, LAWMA pays N1 million as compensation to the family of former staff who died on duty but some of the sweepers said their their families stand to get more with a comprehensive insurance package.