Dangote Cement Fined 15Million over Pollution
The National Environmental Council (NEMC) has ordered the Dangote Industrial Limited to pay a fine of 15m for contravening the Environmental Management Act, 2004 and its regulations.
The Deputy Minister
of State in the Vice-President's Office, Union and Environment, Luhaga
Mpina, penalised the Mtwara based cement industry on his second day of
his tour of the region. The minister realised that the industry that has
three months since it launched its operations is polluting the
environment as it lacked a dumpsite.
The deputy minister further said the industry had no toilets and other environmental facilities.
According to the
deputy minister, the penalty is supposed to be paid within two weeks.
However, he added, the industry's administration should work on all
environmental weaknesses including employing an environment officer who
will oversee all logistics.
The industry's
Administration Manager, James Kajeli, asked the minister to scrap the
penalty insisting that the industry had already put measures in place to
ensure that the environmental legislation was fully implemented.
He said some of the
challenges that were discovered by Mr Mpina came as a result of human
errors. Mr Kajeli further defended the administration that failure to
put up environmental infrastructure was caused by delays in securing
requisite permits from the government institutions.
Mr Mpina also
visited the Madiba gas industry where he praised the industry's top
management for abiding by the environmental law. He asked all state
owned industries to be in the forefront and lead by example.
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