EPA and Navy monitoring dumping of toxic waste

Accra, Nov. 8, GNA- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Ghana Navy were on Wednesday urged to continue with their vigilance in the monitoring of the nation's territorial waters to prevent the coast from being used for the dumping of toxic substances as happened in Cote d'Ivoire.

Mr Stephen Asamoah Boateng, Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment, who made the call at a press briefing in Accra on environmental issues said the two agencies needed to be on the lookout for any trans-boundary manifestation of the ensuing pollution.

=93It is gratifying to note that till date, no obvious manifestation of the dumping in our territorial waters has been reported,=94 he said and called for continue vigilance against the possible occurrence of similar incidents in Ghanaian waters. A French Company last month dumped some toxic waste in the Abidjan area leading to the death of about ten people and injury to many.

Mr. Boateng said at a recently held meeting of Ministers of Environment in Nigeria, a resolution was passed condemning the act and a called for an appropriate punitive action to be imposed on all those found to have colluded in the despicable action.

He said the meeting also recommended that the newly created Interim Guinea Current Commission, which was formerly the Gulf of Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem Project be mandated to prosecute the perpetrators of 91this heinous crime'.

Mr Boateng said despite the existing ban on sand winning from coastal areas the practice continued on a grand scale.

'Despite a plethora of regulations, development in coastal areas remains uncontrolled and nearly anarchic with no existing set back lines.

'Added to all these are the bad practice of using coastal areas as open garbage bins and toilets. Yet our beaches are some of the finest anywhere and could provide the lynchpin of the tourism industry,' he said.

Mr Boateng said in the face of the pressing issues and problems of coastal areas, the choice was between maintaining the present 93fire fighting=94 approach where the problems were resolved as and when it happened, or the institution of an integrated approach where the inter-relationships of the problems were recognized and dealt with within an institutional frame work..

He said attempts in the past at rational coastal areas management failed because the Environment Ministry that produced previous plans or guides for coastal management did it almost to the exclusion of local governments which have implementation responsibilities. He said a consultative stakeholder forum would be organized during the middle of the month to debate the way forward in the management of the environment.

Mr. Boateng said the time has come for Ghanaians to consider waste as a resource that should present opportunity for business. =93Already, there is an informal market in the exchange of waste products such as waste oils, car batteries, bottles, plastics, scrap metals and other possibilities loom large,'

He said there were enormous socio-economic and environmental benefits to be derived from the establishment of a waste stock exchange management system which will function on the model of a typical financial stock exchange and would be private sector driven and self sustaining.

Mr. Boateng said the role of government would be to create the enabling environment and operationalisation of the scheme, adding that the EPA had already developed a database on industrial waste.

He said UNIDO in consultation with the Ministry was in the process of recruiting a consultant firm to expand the research and the database on tradable waste.

'This will provide a viable springboard for the take- off of this important and innovative scheme by mid 2007,' he said.