EPA to be sued, as fuel and gas stations take over cities

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will in the coming days face a class action suit for granting permits for fuel and gas filling stations to be sited haphazardly in some parts of Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi and other big towns.

The action will come from some 11 persons from different locations in the country.

They are livid with the failure of the EPA to undertake the monitoring exercise it promised Ghanaians that it would undertake on April 15, this year.

The EPA has come under severe public scrutiny over the manner it has granted licences for the construction of fuel and gas stations, especially in Accra.

When the pressure was extremely heavy, the state agency quickly issued the April 15, 2015 notice to undertake a monitoring exercise of various stations in the country.

But now, it has been established that the date announced for the monitoring exercise was just a decoy to sway the minds of the public over how bad things had become in connection with the granting of permits at the EPA.

Already, a group in Takoradi are gearing themselves up to demonstrate against the EPA over a number of issues.

Apart from that, a Member of Parliament in the Takoradi area and three others, are in court with Stellar Logistics Company over issues relating to how hazardous Ammonium Nitrate was imported, transported and stored at Takoradi, especially, at the Ghana Air Force Base.

The EPA was caught in huge complexities in the Ammonium Nitrate brouhaha.

The 11 persons feel the EPA has hoodwinked Ghanaians that it was serious about ensuring their safety, but was indeed not doing anything that points to the fact that it was serious in that direction.

Speaking in an interview with The Inquisitor, Mr. Prince Kplanyi, a resident at Madina Estate, where a filling station has been sited in the middle of a cluster of houses, said the EPA was simply not interested in protecting Ghanaians.

Sounding very angry, he said other persons in Kumasi and other places are equally incensed by how bad fuel and gas filling stations are scattered all over the country.

"The truth of the matter is that the EPA has failed us and we will go all out to ensure that it does the right thing," he said.

According to him, there have been a series of meetings with some individuals who have come together for the action and there will be no turning back.

"We want to tell the EPA that if it has gotten away with how mining companies are destroying water bodies, we will not allow it to get away with how it is endangering the lives of Ghanaians by granting permits for filling stations to be sited at wrong places," he said.

Mr. Kplanyi told The Inquisitor that he was in total agreement with plain-talking Mr. Charles Kofi Wayo that the top management and the Board of Directors of the EPA should be fired.

“We cannot agree more with Mr. Wayo because things are getting out of hands at the EPA and the earlier people are fired the better,” he said.

He revealed that lawyers are seriously working on the court thing and very soon they will file the suit.

The EPA in recent time has been in the news for the wrong reasons. Issues relating to permits and importation, storage and transportation of hazardous Ammonium Nitrate have made the public aware of the rot prevailing at the government agency with responsibility of ensuring safety of Ghanaians.

The immediate past Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) set up a committee to look into a variety of issues which the Ammonium Nitrate and issuance of permits were key. Professor Stephen Adei, former Rector of GIMPA, who was a member of the board of directors, had resigned.

Although, no reason has been offered for the resignation, it is widely believed that he was not happy with events at the EPA.

There is a tussle between some management members and board chairman, Prof. Vincent Kodzo Nartey over how the board chair was defending the Executive Director of the EPA.

There is also an uneasy calm among the board members as they are claiming that the board chair has now assumed a management role in the scheme of affairs at the EPA.