By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

A pro-democracy and environmental rights advocacy group, Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development (FENRAD), has slammed the Abia State Government over the resort to sack, instead of adequately funding the Abia State Environmental Protection Agency (ASEPA).

It described adequate funding as key to good performance by the agency.

News Expressreports that the recently sacked ASEPA chiefs, Eze Okwulehie (ASEPA General Manager in charge of Umuahia) and Rowland Nwakamma (ASEPA General Manager in charge of Aba), had blamed their underperformance on lack of equipment (trucks and other facilities) to carry out their task.

Reacting to the sack of the ASEPA chiefs, FENRAD said Saturday in a statement signed by the duo of Executive Director,Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, and Head, Corporate Accountability and Human Rights Enforcement,Barr. Akande Femisi: “FENRAD sees the directive by the Governor that the duo of Eze Okwulehie (ASEPA General Manager in charge of Umuahia) and Rowland Nwakamma (ASEPA General Manager in charge of Aba), as a wake-up call to other heads of agencies, quangos and parastatals still in service.”

However, “The Foundation is worried about the level of the Governor’s commitment towards ensuring statewide environmental wellbeing of the state given the fact that the sacked General Managers blamed their underperformance on lack of equipment (trucks and other facilities) to carry out their task.

“Okwulehie, for example, sources said, claimed there were vehicles the government needed to pay for before they could be used for the purpose of restoring the environment. FENRAD wishes to remind the governor that one of the criteria for his acceptance among Abians when he ran for the governorship position in 2015 was his record as the head of the state's environmental protection agency.

“The Foundation wonders why, if what the former General Manager said is anything to go by, the governor would allow Aba and Umuahia to rot under his watchful eyes.”

FENRAD called on the governor to, as a matter of urgency, increase the budgetary numbers assigned to ASEPA, noting that it will create a statewide sustainable environmental regime.

It pointed the sight of ill-equipped personnel of the Agency collecting dirts at various points and receptacles without safety gears as a thing of worry

Continuing, the statement read: “There should not be room for underperformance as there should not be room for underfunding, when matters of environment are concerned.

“The environment is man's first wealth, a common good whose depletion at one corner of the earth affects the entire globe. This common heritage, the Foundation believes, should be jealously protected by man.

“Again, while FENRAD believes it is commendable to fix and put in place infrastructure, the recent drainage works going on in some places in Aba and Umuahia have equally created some problems affecting the environment with most sites almost an eyesore.

“Also should the Ministry of Environment be interrogated so that all departments under it sit up and the state put on a path of environmental recovery. If indeed Abia is ‘God’s Own State’, let it merit such a title beyond empty appellation or designation.

“FENRAD, in the light of these developments, calls on both the state executive and the legislative arms of government to spare no single resource towards ensuring that the state is kept clean and in healthy sanitary condition, especially these days of pandemic like Covid-19 and its variants and epidemic like cholera and the like. After this sack, the state government should up the ante.”

FENRAD further urged the House Committee on Environment, led by Hon. Kelechi Onuzurike, to also look into logistical issues affecting ASEPA as well as its financial challenges getting in the way of its delivery with a view to ensuring a well-funded and robust Agency.