By Dele Ogbodo
The Minister of State for Environment, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, on Friday (May 3, 2024), said the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, has certificate of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) even though he admitted that the project is a gargantuan project of the President Bola Tinubu Administration spanning over 700km across several states.
In tacit defence of recent controversy emerging from some quarters on the take-off of the project, while speaking to stakeholders and the media on the World Press Freedom Day, with the theme: A Press for The Planet…Journalism in the Face of Environmental Crisis, at the Radio House in Abuja, the Minister, saidthe Federal Ministry of Works, superintended by Engr. David Umahi, applied for environmental impact and social assessment of that project since December 2023.
Salako, said: “Let me say that environmental impact and social assessment is mandated by law for some categories of projects, public and private.
“The Federal Ministry of Environment implements that law, and I can tell you that we take it very, very seriously. We don’t joke with it.
“As a matter of fact, I can tell you that in recent months, we have observed a few loopholes in the existing law.
“And we are already approaching the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to see how to block those loopholes.
On the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, he said the Federal Ministry of Works applied since December 2023/last year for the environmental impact and social assessment certificate of that project.
According to the Minister, the Ministry of Environment has done its preliminary assessment, adding: “I can confirm we have issued a preliminary impact assessment certification for site clearance and scoping for compensation.
“We have done that, and that is what is going on now.
“But you know that it is a very big project, a long road, so it’s not something we can do in one field swoop.
“So we have decided to therefore approach the issuance of the certification in phases like that, so that the project can go on, and we can also be doing our own bit of it.” He said.