Quarries association faults call for sand dredging agency

By Festus Ahon
UGHELLI—CHAIRMAN, of Delta State chapter, Mechanical Sand Miners and Quarries Association, Chief Adelabu Bodjor, has said the establishment of an agency to monitor dredging of sand in the state was unnecessary, as one already exists.

Reacting to suggestions by Mr. Sunny Onuesoke that the government set up a monitoring agency to check the trend, Bodjor said the state’s environment ministry was statutorily empowered to perform such function.

“The Environment Ministry has been shutting down several dredging sites for non-compliance and unsuitability with umbrella Mechanical Sand Miners and Quarries Association complementing the prime regulator by ensuring that its members and new entrants stay on line in the business.

“We state that the Ministry of Environment, charged with the statutory authority to regulate dredging activities in Delta State, is doing very well with the association of dredgers supportive of non-compliant investors being shown the way out.

“The call for the setting up of an obvious parallel monitor where a constitutionally empowered regulator exists is uncalled for,” he said in a statement yesterday.

He said the business of sand dredging in the state was in no small measure, complimenting Governor Uduaghan’s three-point agenda through job creation.