NOSDRA tasks oil marketers on environmental pollution
THE National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, has would begin the enforcement of laws on oil marketers in the downstream petroleum sector next month.
NOSDRA Director-general, Idris Musa, who stated this at a meeting with Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) in Abuja, stressed that extant environmental protection laws in the downstream petroleum was vital.
He also explained that, “By the next month, our officers will be on the field to enforce compliance and before then we would have finished with the two other groups of operators in the downstream oil sector.
“There are stiffer sanctions against non-compliance. The penalty for now is N500, 000 at the moment. If there were consistent defaults, the penalty would be more than that. The first thing is how to comply in order to avert the penalty.”
According to him, they include Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN and Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN. “So nobody will say we were not told, or carried a long in effecting of the laws.”
“However, NOSDRA is going to pass the information through their executive bodies who will be able to disseminate this to their members across the 774 local governments in Nigeria.”
Musa further maintained that the government, through this initiative, would curb all forms of pollution of groundwater caused by pollutants from the facilities of oil marketing firms nationwide.
“For the boreholes that are already being polluted, we are putting a check to those things that make it possible for the groundwater to be polluted. Once we guide the operators properly, they will know what to do.”
Musa however, declared: “people should be more cautious and operators must be aware of the need to keep their operations in a way that will not pollute the environment.
“There would be sanctions against defaulters, because NOSDRA wants to implement the existence laws, and not primarily aimed at sanctioning or penalising operators, but defaulters would face the consequences.”