By Josephine Nyeweah in Kenema District.
Staff of the Environment Protection Agency and their partners are engaged nationwide with stakeholders to finalize and approve the Draft National Integrated Air Quality and Pollution Regulations.
The regulations are the first to be developed in Sierra Leone to reduce the release of dangerous gases into the atmosphere and protect people from their harmful effects. When enacted into law, these regulations will help Sierra Leone fulfill its obligations under international conventions related to the protection of the environment and human health.
The regional engagement took place at the YAD Conference Hall on Maxwell Khobe Street in Kenema, where diverse stakeholders were in attendance.
The Regional Manager of the EPA, Momoudu Justin Conteh, on behalf of the Executive Chairperson and Board of Directors of the EPA, thanked all stakeholders for honoring their invitation to take part in the validation workshop. He said the EPA would continue to work with all stakeholders to make our environment safe for all.
The representative of the Paramount Chief of Nongowa Chiefdom, Kenema District, Chief Bobson Abdulai, thanked the EPA SL and partners for organizing such a forum, which he said is good for national development, calling on all and sundry for total support of the process.
The Local Unit Commander Police Division in Kenema, Edison Vandi, said that as a law enforcement body, they are committed to enforcing laws related to the protection of the environment and human wellbeing and assured the EPA and other stakeholders of their fullest support.
Mohamed Jamil Moseray, who represented the Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority Office in Kenema, said they have been enforcing a provision in their law relating to thick smoke emissions from vehicle exhaust and called on the EPA to strengthen this in their regulations. He also spoke about carbon emissions from other machines in communities and emphasized the need to strengthen existing laws to control these activities.
Gibrilla Kamara, Manager of Legal Affairs, Compliance, and Enforcement at the EPA SL, called on stakeholders in the district to do everything possible to protect the environment in the interest of their communities and the nation as a whole, as that is the only way to promote sustainable development. He noted that the leadership at EPA is determined to build effective partnerships with local and international partners to develop the right legal and regulatory frameworks to fulfill Sierra Leone’s commitments in Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and to protect the people of Sierra Leone from the harmful effects of air pollution. Mr. Kamara noted that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) supported Sierra Leone to develop the regulations. In order to ensure coherence in the legal framework on air quality and address emerging issues, Mr. Kamara said that the EPA, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is organizing final validation workshops of the draft regulations before they are enacted.
Mohamed Kamara, Principal Chemicals Officer at the EPA, presented on the efforts being made by the agency to address air pollution in Sierra Leone and the WHO Guidelines that guided the development of the Air Quality and Pollution Regulations.
The final validation workshops are organized in Kenema, Bo, Kono, Makeni, and Port Loko.
