Firms given 30-day deadline to reduce pollution

Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has given 20 industrial firms 30 days to reduce pollution levels or face prosecution, state-owned radio reported on Thursday. The firms include food, textile and oil companies. EPA Executive Director Peter Acquah’s warning to the firms was issued at an Accra workshop on guidelines for the sound management of biomedical waste in Ghana. The EPA has asked the firms to submit plans on reducing their industrial effluent because, he said, their waste generation and discharge were beyond the approved threshold. Acquah said the EPA was training staff on judicial and prosecution processes to prosecute firms that pollute the environment. Waste management in Ghana was still poor, he said, and most treatment plants had broken down.