By Anietie Akpan
January 25, 2025, between the hours of 7am and 10am is yet another monthly sanitation day in Cross River State.
In Calabar, residents turned out in large number to keep the city clean.
The Commissioner for Environment Hon. Moses Osogi as usual embarked on a monitoring and supervision of the Environmental sanitation exercise. See pictures below:
But Pillar Today observed two things very disturbing. One some residents in the city of Calabar still dump refuse in drains thereby blocking waterways.
Secondly, some unscrupulous elements deliberately use hard materials to block the gutters so that gutter sand will settle for them to scoop and sale.
In the process the tarred road and the slabs across the gutter are peeled off causing serious damage to the road. This is disturbing.
A case in point is the street directly opposite Government Primary School in Ekorinim 1 leading to Ekorimim 2 opposite the Redeem Church.
Previous and current governments have worked many times on this particular gutter slabs yet gutter sand hustlers block it for sand collection. This is one of the many cases in Calabar.
The collapsed gutter slabs at Ekorinim 1 opposite the Government Primary School.
The Commissioner for Environment is advised to also take his monitoring and evaluation to these areas to ensure that such nefarious practices are checked and people involved brought to book.