LWMC wants charges through utility bills

Company has to repay Rs40 billion loan

LAHORE:

The Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) has proposed collection of garbage tax from citizens with utility bills to improve its financial position and overcome a debt of over Rs40 billion.

Sources said the final approval of the proposal to would be given by the Punjab government. The government decided several years ago to transfer the task of transporting the garbage of city to the dumping point to the Waste Management Company from the metropolitan corporation and contracts were awarded to foreign companies.

About 10,000 employees of the solid waste management department of the Metropolitan Corporation Lahore were transferred to the company and officers were appointed on market-based high salaries. The Metropolitan Corporation paid about Rs3 billion annually for salaries of its employees, while about Rs12 billion was received from Punjab government as interest-free loan for meeting other expenses of the company.

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The Waste Management Company collects Rs35 garbage collection charges from households through the bills of the Water and Sanitation Agency. However, the collection made in this regard is negligible.

During the past 11 years, the Punjab government has given more than Rs40 billion loan to the company, but so far no amount has been repaid as no plan was made to generate revenue, manage the expenses of the company and repay the loan before the company was formed.

The expenses of the company are also increasing along with the loan.

Therefore, the Waste Management Company has decided to impose a garbage tax to become self-sufficient. It has proposed to collect the tax with the natural gas or electricity bills.

The property tax data has also been collected from the excise department so that the new tax can be levied in proportion to the area of houses. The company had earlier targeted six inner city union councils to impose garbage tax. The residents were provided plastic bags for garbage collection along with the cleaning service, but the collection could not be started. Similarly, an experiment of collection of charges from markets also failed.

Rao Mohammad Aslam, former MD of the Waste Management Company, said the proposal was aimed at helping the company stand on its own feet. While the services of thousands of employees of the SWM department of Metropolitan Corporation Lahore were handed over to the Waste Management Company before the agreement with foreign companies, about 500 vehicles were gifted to other local bodies and some were auctioned.

Motorcycles and rickshaws worth millions of rupees were bought to pick garbage from the narrow streets of the union councils selected in the earlier phase.

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The experiment of collecting the charges from the markets failed so the Waste Management Company has decided to collect the amount through gas or electricity bills. Rao Aslam, the former MD of the Waste Management Company, said the job of the Waste Management Company is to provide facilities to the citizens and keep the city clean. The company cannot overcome the deficit until the charges are collected. He said the company is charging money for providing services to cooperative housing societies, which has led to an increase in income, but it is insufficient. He said other plans are being developed to make the company financially stable. The proposal to impose a garbage tax is a part of various efforts being made in this regard, he added.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2020.