Hundreds of millions of naira have been discovered to have been allegedly defrauded at the Lagos State Waste Management Authority, LAWMA.

The lid which sensationally blew off massive racketeering at the agency, was sequel to an investigation of the forensic audit of LAWMA, following information by a group of whistleblowers, identified as “Concerned LAWMA operators.”

Series of shady deals which ran into several million has led to bleeding of the State’s treasury.

Statutorily, LAWMA’s brief includes oversight of PSP operators, sweepers of highways, clearing of marine waste and market management, as well as the de-silting of the primary and secondary drainage.

No fewer than 600 operators are accredited by LAWMA and they, in turn, employ more than 16,000 sweepers and hundreds of supervisors. Or, so it is stated in the books.

The alleged sleaze specifically involved the padding of the wage bill for highway sweepers and their supervisors for several months by a cartel led by a lady, (name-withheld) but simply identified as “Iron Lady.” She was said to enjoy the backing of some powerful political actors in the state.

The 66 routes the “Iron Lady” controlled effectively put her share of the Lagos waste market at more than 10 percent.

To ensure that there was enough cash to feed the guzzling elephant, funds budgeted to take care of other critical like marine service, public transport, drainage de-silting and used tyres clearance were said to have been cleverly converted into offsetting the bogus and ever-rising wage bills, thereby leaving those equally essential needs to suffer.

Interestingly, last month, the state government relieved Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin of duties as Managing Director/CEO of the agency and named Mr. Ibrahim Odumboni in acting capacity.

Both Gbadegesin and Odumboni were appointed last year by the Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration with the intent to restoring LAWMA back to the original masterplan and cleaning up the mess left in the waste management sector as a result of the “disastrous romance” the preceding administration of Governor Ambode entered into with Visionscape.

Whereas the former came from ICT background, the latter had a rich experience in the financial sector and was head-hunted from a top-notch financial institution in the United Kingdom.

Though no official reasons were given for Gbadegesin’s exit in May, our investigations revealed that Sanwo-Olu, a no-nonsense Governor with zero tolerance for sloppiness or corruption, took the action to allow unimpeded forensic audit of the agency following security reports cataloguing shady deals and primitive looting of LAWMA’s treasury.