By LYDIA NGWAKWE

The Lagos State Water Regulatory Commission (LASWARCO) has sealed three companies for extracting large quantities of groundwater for commercial purposes without proper authorisation and compliance with regulations.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the three companies are Nigerian Bottling Company, producers of Coca-Cola, FrieslandCampina, makers of Peak Milk and Guinness Nigeria Plc.

Mr Olowu Babatunde, Director, Technical Services, LASWARCO, said this during an enforcement on Tuesday in Lagos.

Babatunde said that LASWARCO had been engaging with these companies for over seven years to encourage compliance but efforts have been met with limited success.

“We operate a law that empowers us to regulate most of these heavy abstractors in Lagos State.

“Abstractors are individuals or entities that extract large quantities of groundwater for commercial purposes.

“So, these companies that we have sealed, basically three of them – Coca-Cola, FreislandCampina and Guinness, abstract water in large quantities.

“And we have been engaging them over time. At least, I have been here for more than seven years now. We’ve been engaging these companies for more than seven years now.

“Some, either they do partial compliance, or some don’t comply at all. So, now that we started implementation of our regulation, we now compel them to fulfill all their regulatory demands,” he said.

NAN reports that the enforcement was a follow-up of a news briefing on unregulated groundwater abstraction by Mr Tokunbo Wahab, the Commissioner, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, held on Monday.

Wahab noted that the Environmental Management Protection Law 2017 empowered LASWARCO to regulate groundwater activities and impose penalties for unauthorised abstraction.

He said that unregulated groundwater extraction could lead to serious environmental consequences, including land subsidence and groundwater contamination.

The commissioner said in 2020, the government offered a 75 per cent waiver on groundwater abstraction fees, but compliance was low.

This, he said, necessitated LASWARCO to now initiate enforcement actions against defaulters.

He said that letters were issued to non-compliant organisations with a 72-hour ultimatum to comply and penalties would be imposed on those who continued to operate without authorisation. (NAN)