The Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Mahama Ayariga, has admitted to gross failure across key state agencies in the handling of issues of national importance.
Citing last Wednesday’s floods and GOIL filling station disaster to make a case for greater responsibility, he told Fiifi Banson on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.3 FM Tuesday that institutions tasked with the responsibility to ensure that the country was well managed, have all failed.
“There is an institution failure across board …from Metropolitan and District Assemblies to Town & Country Planning Department to Fire Service Department to EPA to Ministerial levels. We’ve all slept on the job.”
Checks conducted by his office he says has uncovered lapses that needed to be corrected to avert any such occurrence in future.
The Minister is currently touring fuel filling stations in Accra to assess at first hand their compliance with environmental best practices and related laws regulating their operations.
He had initially serviced notice of clamping down on all illegal fuel stations within the 3600-operating ecosystem as well as those operating without permit from appropriate institutions like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Petroleum Authority (NPA), and Town & Country Planning Department among others.
He told Banson that a lot of filling stations are sited in unauthorized locations and have no permits to operate as well.
Others too, he said, were operating with permits from the EPA and the Town & Country Planning Department but were engaged in other businesses that are not permissible by law.
For instance, he said some of the fuel filling stations were also operating a restaurant which in his view was an affront to the laws regulating the sector.
Such situations, he argued, are likely to endanger lives in case of an accident.
“The two cannot go together and institutions that have the responsibility to ensure that the right things are done are not doing it.
If you want to operate a filling station, fine. But if you want to operate a restaurant in addition, then we will take our permit or revoke it to allow you operate the restaurant. The two can’t go together.”
By Kasapafmonline.com/Ghana
