By Chuks Oyema-Aziken
The Federal Government has inaugurated a committee to minimize risks of exposure of Nigerians and the environment to harmful effects of Polychlorinated Biphenyls PCBs.
The committee inaugurated by the Minister of Environment, Dr Mohammad Abubakar is also to enhance compliance with national obligations under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants,POPs.
Abubakar, at the event,explained that his action was a fallout of Nigeria’s membership of the global community in negotiating, adopting and ratifying the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in 2001, which
listed PCBs in the initial register of 12 POPs, also known as ‘dirty dozen’.
“The convention bans the production and new uses of PCBs and requires parties to eliminate the use of PCBs in equipment by 2025 and ensure the environmentally sound management of liquids containing PCBs and equipment contaminated with PCBs by 2028,” he said.
The minister noted that, “Apart from being associated with burdens of diseases such as damage
to the immune system, liver, skin and reproductive system, the
International Agency for Research of Cancer (IARC-WHO) has classified some PCBs as Class 1 carcinogens.”
“Bodies of scientific evidences have revealed for over fifty years that these characteristics that made PCBs ‘popular
additives’ also represent humongous threats to human and environmental well-being, irrespective of creed or caste,” he said.
He charged the committee “to demonstrate a high sense of national patriotism,
integrity and responsibility towards actualising elimination of PCBs and
associated burdens of morbidity and mortality in our country.”
He said the cross-cutting dimension
of PCBs management and magnitude of associated challenges call for
a collective responsibility among all sectoral stakeholders.
The committee’ terms of reference included
provision of overall strategic policy and management direction to the project implementation; review and approve annual project work and budget plans and project progress reports; and
hold an end-of-project review to capture lessons learned and discuss opportunities for project sustainability.”
The constitution of the steering committee, the minister explained, was “part of the institutional arrangement for engendering transparency,
accountability and inclusive participation, to guarantee effective delivery of the project developmental objective.”
The committee was also tasked to, “Review and approve annual project work and budget plans and project progress reports and
hold an end-of-project review to capture lessons learned and discuss opportunities for project sustainability.”
The committee which was first set up in 2018 with a five-year mandate to conclude its assignment,but only inaugurated yesterday, has three more years to round off its work.
