The EPA is cracking down on environmental criminals

General News on Friday, April 26, 2019

Source: Ghananewsagency.org

2019-04-26

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Friday that it was willing to punish people and companies who violate environmental laws as well as those who operate without a license.

As a result, the Agency has put in place proactive, effective and efficient systems, including training senior officers in prosecutions to deal with offenders.

Mr. Kingsley Ekow Guray-Sey, EPA Program Manager, announced this idea during a two-day training event organized by the Agency for the benefit of environmental journalists in Accra .

Participants would be made aware of EPA's mandate, regulations on waste, chemicals, mines and climate change, to enable them to understand and better inform the public about the need to protect the environment.

Guray-Sey said proactive monitoring of companies in the country, especially large cities, was part of the systems to ensure compliance.

"In the past, we have punished the guilty in the districts … now we are suing people and companies," he said.

Mr. Guray-Sey said that prosecutions in the past have not been as good as expected due to difficulties, including lack of technical staff.

The Agency, he said, has joined various metropolitan, municipal and district bademblies and the Ghana police to build a tax force to deal with industrial effluents and noise pollution.

Ms. Angelina Ama Tutuah Mensah, Public Relations Officer of the EPA, said that protecting the environment was a shared responsibility and that the public should support the agency by providing information to concerned officials .

She emphasized that, while the statutory function of the EPA was to coordinate the activities of agencies involved in the technical aspect of the environment, the public had a role to play in making this a success.

Ms. Mensah stated that the Agency would continue to launch and pursue formal and non-formal education programs aimed at raising public awareness of the environment and its importance for the economic and social life of citizens. .