The federal ministry of environment has announced that it intends to impose sanctions on telecoms companies which violated the Environmental Impact Assessment regulations in Nigeria. This was contained in a recent statement issued by the ministry.
According to Ben Goong, deputy director of press and public relations in the ministry, the decision to sanction telecom operators was reached when Darius Ishaku, supervising minister of the ministry, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Omobola Johnson, minister of communications technology.
Under the agreement, all telecom operators in violation of the EIA regulation will now pay the specified non-compliance and administrative fees to the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA).
The statement said all base station sites that were in existence prior to the National Environmental Standards for Telecommunication and Broadcast Facilities Regulations No. 11 of 2011 and that are in compliance with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) guidelines would be re-opened.
“NESREA has been mandated to communicate to NCC the total number of sealed telecom base stations that violated the EIA Act, and copy same to the federal ministries of environment and communications technology,” it said.
