Gombe – The Federal Government is to introduce Clean City League, to improve on environmental sanitation, to enable states and Local Government Areas in the country compete for reward.
The Minister of Environment, Hajiya Amina Muhammad, stated this at the commemoration of 2016 National Environmental Sanitation Day on Tuesday in Gombe.
The 2016 National Environmental Sanitation Day had the theme “Keeping Nigeria Clean and Green: our collective responsibility.’’
“It is my ardent belief that environmental health problems can be effectively brought under control by instituting effective and efficient collaborative measures at federal, state and local government levels.
“This collaboration can be achieved through the development and empowerment of environmental health officers at all levels.
“In order to achieve that the ministry has created environmental health officers registration council (EHORECON), they are saddle with the responsibility of registering qualified health officers across the various MDAs both at the federal and state levels,’’ she said.
The minister said that the issues of environmental sanitation and the magnitude of the problem call for collective responsibilities for the country.
“It is in the light of this, an Inter-Ministerial Committee was inaugurated at the federal level as part of the institutional arrangement for ensuring effective participation of all stakeholders in the implementation of the National Environmental Sanitation Programme”, she said
She said that the stakeholders were representatives from the relevant Ministries, Department, Agencies, Military and paramilitary as well as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
Gov. Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe State promised to support the effort of the federal government towards addressing environmental challenges in the state and the country at large.
He said that his administration was committed toward ensuring environmental sustainability and called on the people to stop uncontrolled felling of trees.
He said that recently he had approved the procurement of fuel economic stove to promote healthier cooking at homes to reduce dependent on firewood.
Dankwambo said the state government had expended over N2 billion in an effort to curtail flood as well as erosion and N5 billion is required to effectively address the problem.
He also thanked the Federal Government for supporting the state through the Ecological Fund to address ecological challenges.
