The Lagos State Authorities has sealed the services of three main corporations – Nigerian Bottling Firm (producers of Coca-Cola), FrieslandCampina (makers of Peak Milk), and Guinness Nigeria Plc – for extracting massive portions of groundwater with out correct authorisation.
The Lagos State Water Regulatory Fee (LASWARCO) carried out the enforcement operation, as disclosed by Mr. Olowu Babatunde, Director of Technical Companies at LASWARCO, on Tuesday in Lagos, as reported by the Information Company of Nigeria.
Babatunde revealed that LASWARCO had been participating with these corporations for over seven years to make sure compliance with water abstraction rules, however these efforts had largely been unsuccessful.
“We function a regulation that empowers us to control most of those heavy abstractors in Lagos State. Abstractors are people or entities that extract massive portions of groundwater for business functions.
“So, these corporations that now we have sealed, principally three of them – Coca-Cola, FreislandCampina and Guinness, summary water in massive portions.
“And now we have been participating them over time. A minimum of, I’ve been right here for greater than seven years now. We’ve been participating these corporations for greater than seven years now.
“Some, both they do partial compliance, or some don’t comply in any respect. So, now that we began implementation of our regulation, we now compel them to satisfy all their regulatory calls for,” he stated.
The transfer highlights the fee’s resolve to implement compliance and deal with the environmental dangers posed by unregulated groundwater abstraction.
Extra perception
The NAN report highlighted that the enforcement stemmed from a current briefing by Tokunbo Wahab, Commissioner for the Ministry of Atmosphere and Water Assets.
Wahab emphasised the crucial want to control groundwater actions to deal with environmental dangers similar to land subsidence and groundwater contamination.
He defined that the Environmental Administration Safety Legislation of 2017 grants LASWARCO the authority to supervise groundwater abstraction and penalize organisations that fail to adjust to the rules.In 2020, the Lagos State Authorities launched a 75% waiver on groundwater abstraction charges to encourage compliance, however the response from organisations was restricted.This led LASWARCO to implement enforcement measures, together with issuing notices to non-compliant organisations with a 72-hour deadline to satisfy regulatory necessities. Corporations that did not comply confronted penalties, together with the sealing of their premises and different authorized actions.
Wahab confused that every one efforts at dialogue and collaboration had been exhausted, making enforcement important to make sure adherence to the regulation and defend the setting.
