The Hon. Minister of Environment, Balarabe Abbas Lawal on Tuesday lauded the Director General of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Prof. Innocent Barikor saying that under two years, Prof Barikor has made valuable contributions to environmental protection in the country.
The Minister, who gave the commendation when Prof. Barikor briefed him on the activities of NESREA in the past one year, said, “I have been commending you because you have made a lot of impact. You have shown NESREA to be truly the police of the environment.”
Balarabe Abbas Lawal called for cohesion among Departments and Agencies under his Ministry, stressing the need for synergy .
Earlier, in his presentation, Prof. Barikor highlighted some activities carried out by NESREA in the past on year, noting that through the automated import clearance regime, the Agency has been able to checkmate the importation of hazardous goods into the country.
He said, “The Agency processed and issued 10,804 Environmental Import Clearances, while rejecting 30 non-compliant applications, most of which were electronics which had reached their end of life.”
Prof. Barikor disclosed that NESREA carried out 4,894 compliance monitoring visits and inspections to different facilities, investigated over 200 complaints, while sealing a total of 88 non-compliant facilities.
He further stated that 2,925 Environmental Audit Reports (EAR); 1,903 Environmental Management Plan (EMPs) were reviewed and certified, and a total of 1,969 environmental permits were issued to facilities.
Other activities highlighted by the DG include the equipping of the National Environmental Reference Laboratory (NERL) in Port Harcourt with state-of-the-art equipment for environmental research under Phase I of the Fleming Fund; the Commencement of the Global Environment Facility Child Project (GEF-ID 11193)- Circular Solution to Plastics Pollution in Nigeria and the take-off of the Global Environment Facility (GEF-ID 11049) – Circular and POPs-free Plastics in Africa (EEE Sector) , as well as the implementation of the phase 1 of the Japanese Government JSB funded UNEP ONE World Circular Solutions to Plastic Pollution funded by the Government of Japan through UNEP Small Scale Funding Agreement (SSFA), among others.
The NESREA boss thanked the Minister for his leadership and mentorship in environmental governance.
Present at the briefing were the Permanent Secretary, Mahmud Adam Kambari and heads of various Departments and Agencies under the Ministry.
