Daily Trust (Abuja)
Posted to the web 1 June 2007
http://allafrica.com/stories/200706010143.html
Nigeria: Nigeria Inaugurates Task Team on Stockpiles
The federal government has inaugurated the Nigeria-Africa Stockpiles Programme (ASP) to rid the country of obsolete and toxic pesticides.
The programme is a product of a vision by African countries and their development partners to rid the continent of about 50,000 metric tons of stockpiles that were highly toxic.
Mrs Ammuna Ali, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban Development, inaugurated the task team yesterday in Abuja.
She said it was prompted by the need to ensure that policy and institutional frameworks were put in place to avoid recurrence.
Ali said existing scientific evidence showed that health and environmental effects had been traced to exposure to obsolete pesticides.
She named the health problems associated with the toxic pesticides as cancer, loss of memory and concentration, anxiety, infertility and low sperm count in men.
Others, she added, included disfunction of kidneys, livers and blood or digestive tracts, weakness of arms, legs, hands and death of plants, animals and human beings. S
he said the ASP was envisioned as a 12 to 15-year initiative, estimated to cost about 250 million dollars.
The permanent secretary said the programme was being funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to the tune of 2.24 million dollars.
According to her, it also has a counterpart funding of 384,400 dollars from the federal government.
Ali said government was committed to the successful implementation of the programme by releasing about N17.594 million before the signing of the grant agreement in August 2006.
She announced that arrangements had been made for the release of the balance of government counterpart fund amounting to 256,400 dollars.
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Seven African countries, she noted, including Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mali, Morocco and Tunisia, had been selected for the first phase of the programme.
Earlier, the Project Coordinator, Mr Theodore Nwaokwe, said the Nigeria-ASP trust fund agreement was signed in August 2006, while the programme was officially inaugurated in September of the same year.
He said the project's technical and financial advisers were the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the World Bank.
