Rivers State House of Assembly Slams NBC over poor environment standards

...issues summons

The Nigerian Bottling Company has received a knock from the Rivers legislature over its poor environmental standards.

That Chairman Rivers State House of Assembly committee on environment, Hon Ahiakwo Christian berated the company on Tuesday when he led other members of his committee on oversight.

He further summoned them to appear before the committee on Monday 24th April 2017.

"we have visited your plants we have observed them, we will not comment immediately but I want to say that your consultant who framed your EIA and your management to appear before the committee at the Rivers State house of Assembly, your environmental consultant would be interfacing with our consultant, so that the grey areas identified in the EIA would be straightened."

He lamented that the EIA was dated 2014 even when they have being in operation for over 10 years, "already that is an issue, the EIA is dated 2014 and you have been here operating for more than ten years so by law there is an issue."

He also faulted the gap between the EIA and the environmental management plan which he noted was dated 2017 "so that means after the EIA nothing happen, there was no environmental management plan because the one I saw here is dated 2017, so these are some of the issues that your environmental consultant will look at with our own environmental consultant.

He explained that the reason for the assessment was to checkmate the recent environmental pollution in the state, "from last year we have experienced so many environmental issues in Rivers State, and they are not unconnected with industrial activities, so we need to find out who is doing the right thing and who is not doing the right thing"

He noted that they were not on a witch hunting exercise but to ensure that things are done properly "if you are doing very well, we will not be stingy with words, we will go to the press and say that coca cola is doing very well and if you are not doing well to we will not hesitate to take action" he noted