Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, NESREA, Dr. Ngeri Benebo
The Federal Government has shut down 205 telecommunications firms for failing to comply with environmental laws.
It was learnt on Friday that the
premises of the companies were sealed by environmental inspection
officers from the Nigerian Environmental Standards and Regulations
Agency after a series of warnings were ignored by the affected firms.
A document on the Managing of the
Environment for Sustainable Development, which was obtained by our
correspondent from the Federal Ministry of Environment in Abuja on
Friday, showed that the sealed firms cut across the six geopolitical
zones of the country.
It was also gathered that 37 cases of
environmental offences were prosecuted by the government and seven
convictions recorded, with nine others settled out of court while 21
were still pending.
Although some of the affected firms have
been reopened, several other are still closed because they have yet to
meet the Federal Government’s directives on environmental standards,
according to the document.
Forty-six of the sealed companies are in
the North-Central, while 30 of them that later complied with the
environmental laws in the region have been unsealed.
In the North-West, 18 companies were
sealed; out of which11 had been reopened; South-South had 27 sealed and
19 reopened; North-East had the highest number of sealed firms, 67, and
41 of the companies reopened.
According to the document, the
South-East had 33 firms that were sealed while 20 were unsealed and the
North-East had 14 sealed and eight unsealed firms.
A senior official of NESREA told our
correspondent that the enforcement of environmental laws on businesses
in Nigeria started in 2012.
The official, who pleaded not to be
named because he was not authorised to speak on the subject, said the
Federal Government had shut down the operations of hundreds of companies
since it commenced the enforcement of the environmental standards.
The official said, “The sealing of the
telecoms firms is part of what the government is doing in its drive to
enforce environmental compliance among businesses in Nigeria. I can
confirm to you that a very large number of firms, in their hundreds,
have been sealed by the government for flouting environmental laws.”
The Chief Press Secretary, NESREA, Mr.
Sule Oyofo, told our correspondent that the agency often warned the
firms before they were sealed, adding that for more than two years the
government had consultations with various companies on issues relating
to environmental compliance.
He said, “NESREA has to enforce
environmental compliance for safety of lives and properties and that led
to the sealing of some of the affected companies.”
The Director-General/Chief Executive
Officer, NESREA, Dr. Ngeri Benebo, had described the level of compliance
with environmental laws by businesses operating in the country as very
slow.
She expressed worry that most businesses only upheld stipulated laws after being sanctioned.
Benebo had said, “The major
environmental issue that should be paid attention to is the need for
businesses and everybody to comply and for us to apply the laws fairly.
This is because in some areas the level of compliance has not been very
fast. It has been slow but we have been moving along with them on that
slow pace.
“We are not here to scuttle any
developmental process. If we give you our compliance concern and tell
you to remediate five things; by the time we come back, if you have done
two out of five, we will acknowledge that you are moving but at a slow
pace.”
She stated that the agency had evolved ways of making business organisations to comply with stipulated directives promptly.
NESREA, according to her, has sanctioned several errant firms and would continue to do so until there was full compliance.
“Several companies have been sanctioned,
and I must commend Nigerians for sometimes they don’t want to comply
but by the time we apply the necessary sanctions, they comply quickly,”
she added.
Benebo insisted that the agency had the capacity to enforce environmental regulations.
Recently, the Nigerian Communications
Commission shut down some telecoms companies for allegedly offering
telecommunications services to customers, without obtaining operational
licence to do so.
NCC enforcement team, led by Mr. Salisu
Abdul, head of Enforcement, confiscated some of its equipment as
evidence for illegal operation.
One of the firms closed down then, was
said to be offering telecommunications services on vehicle tracking, as
well as sales and installation of fixed and mobile telecommunication
terminals, without operational licence, which NCC described as an
offense amounting to defrauding of the Federal Government.
Apart from offering vehicle tracking
devices, the firm was also involved in the sales and installation of
telecommunication equipment like CCTV Camera, GSM terminal, Routers and
Internet Modems, including Walkie Talkie and other mobile devices.
The law clearly stipulates that a person
must be competent in the sales and installation and in the delivering
of such services, through the official obtaining of operational licence
from the telecoms regulatory body, the NCC, before embarking on such
business.
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