• Experts seek end to critical water challenges
Ogun State Government has commenced visits to table and sachet water factories towards ensuring that they comply with established standards and guide against cholera outbreak.
Commissioner for Environment, Ola Oresanya, disclosed this, yesterday, in Abeokuta during a stakeholders’ meeting attended by Table Water and Beverages Producers Association of Nigeria, Ogun State chapter and officials of the Ministries of Environment, Health, Industries and Trade.
Oresanya said the compliance exercise became necessary to address environmental lapses detected in their production processes, which are at variance with earlier certification by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) that resulted in the outbreak of cholera and loss of lives.
Oresanya said the state government would conduct the compliance exercise to reinforce and domesticate NAFDAC certification in all the 20 councils. He said: “The team will, among others, demand for routine microbial analysis results of their products, check the distance of their production boreholes to their septic tanks, their operational environment as well as medical certificate of fitness of their products for human consumption.”
Oresanya said the compliance exercise would address environmental and hygienic lapses detected in their production processes, which is at variance with their earlier certification by NAFDAC that resulted in the outbreak of cholera, which claimed some lives, while other were hospitalised.
As a responsible government, Oresanya said the state government would conduct the compliance exercise to reinforce and domesticate their NAFDAC certification in all the 20 councils of the state as the team would move to all water-producing factories for on the spot assessment of their production processes.
“The team will, among others, demand for routine microbial analysis results of their products, check the distance of their production boreholes to their and septic tanks, their operational environment as well as medical certificate of fitness of their products for human consumption.
“For clarity all registered and unregistered water producing factories will be visited and any one of them that fail the compliance exercise will be shut and will remain so until it passed the laid down procedures before it is opened for business in the public interest” he added.
Oresanya, therefore, called on them to support the compliance exercise as the state government is not out to witchhunt any of them but safeguard the health of its residents from preventable waterborne diseases and set a healthy standard for their products which have suffered from negative public acceptance in the aftermath of the outbreak of the disease.
Responding, the Chairman of the Table Water and Beverages Producers Association of Nigeria, Ogun State chapter, Mr Femi Olukoga, pledged his members support for the exercise, saying it will help the body to sanitise its ranks and weed out quacks, whose activities are inimical to the well-being of residents of the state.
MEANWHILE, the Minister of Water Resources and Sanitation, Prof. Joseph Terlumun Utsev, has said the Federal Government is unrelenting in bridging the gap of accessibility to potable water by Nigerians nationwide.
The Minister stated this in a message to the opening of the 13th Annual Conference of the Nigeria Association of Hydrological Sciences held at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lagos, Akoka.
The theme of the Conference and Annual General Meeting is: “Water, Environment and Society.” Represented by the Managing Director of Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority, Femi Odumosu, the Minister noted that the globe was experiencing unprecedented shortage of water and challenged the forum to continue research on water resources to bridge the gap between science and the people.
Utsev observed that Climate change in form of drought had greatly affected the availability of water for human consumption and other purposes.
He said: “Water is critical to live and Livelihood and critical to the economy. No meaningful development can take place in the globe without water.”
In her comment, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Mrs Folasade Ogunsola, said she was extremely glad that the society considered UNILAG as the choice venue for the event.
The VC was represented at the event by the Dean of Engineering, Prof Obanishola Sodiq who described the conference as crucial to the current happenings in the country and the world at large.
Earlier, the President of the Nigeria Association of Hydrological Sciences, Prof David Jimoh, said that multidisciplinary Association focused on advancing the knowledge of Hydrological and water resources in Nigeria.
