BY DARGIE KAHSAY
Ethiopia has enacted Industrial Chemical Registration and Administration proclamation 1075/2018, to establish a national system for registration and administration of industrial chemicals with the goal of preventing and controlling the adverse effects arising from the mismanagement of chemicals.
Though the proclamation was publicized three years ago, practically there is no activity or implementation mechanism to control chemical management mechanism in the country.
Unless managed and controlled properly, chemicals have an adverse impact on lives as well as environmental safety and destruction of property during production, transaction and stock. For the proper management and controlling mechanism, it is critical to implement clear policy and strategy of accountability and administration system of chemicals, according to relevant government authorities.
“Due to the necessity of implementing chemicals controlling, Ethiopia has promulgated the 1075/2018 proclamation to control the effects of chemicals on lives and environment” says Frenesh Mekuriya, Environment Sector Deputy Commissioner with Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (EEC).
According to Frenesh, the need for the implementation of chemical registration system helps to have clear flow of information and regulation mechanism for regulatory bodies.
“Chemicals are double edged knives”, Frenesh remarked. “They are both important and at the same time very dangerous product. To minimize the dangerous nature of these important products, implementing modern controlling and handling mechanism must be a today’s action than tomorrow”
According to the state minister chemical industry is growing highly due to the development of industry sector in Ethiopia which is basically following the transition of Ethiopia from agriculture based to industrial economic system. For Frenesh even though the sector is growing, still the sector needs further development technologically and in productivity as it is vital input for industry.
Chemicals have vital importance in improving development and humans’ lives as they are becoming inputs for our daily consumptions. But, parallel to their importance, if not handled wisely the adverse impact of chemicals is worse and beyond their advantage.
Due to this nature of chemicals, it forced to have international agreements and national proclamations to minimize the adverse effects with strong controlling and management system of chemicals, according to Frenesh.
The only means to control the adverse effects of chemicals on lives and the environment is by implementing strict precautions and safety measures by registering the import and production of chemicals with strong and smooth flow of communication between government bodies and the producers and importers, EEC State Minister noticed.
State Minister of Trade and Industry (MoTI), Yohanes Dinkayehu on his part argued that chemical is key input for the realization of Ethiopia’s plan of transforming its economy from agriculture led to industrial led economic development. Chemical is the backbone of manufacturing sector, for leather, textile, food and beverage and other products, he stated.
For this purpose, a lot of chemicals are produced locally and imported from abroad, the state minister noted.
But, at the same time the impact of chemicals is very destructive unless handled wisely, he argued. According to Yohanes to minimize the adverse effects of chemical products on environment and lives there is a need for serious and strict control mechanism with accountability and transparency during transportation, stocking, distribution.
For Yohanes strong national chemical management and controlling mechanism is vital to control the adverse impact of chemical products and for the proper disposal of unnecessary ones timely since chemicals are dangerous in their nature and also changed themselves to hazardous wastes.
Although there is no clear data due to absence of information network established for registering chemicals in Ethiopia yet, a huge amount and types of unnecessary chemicals are stocked in different parts of the country with carless stocking, he stated. “Unless we solve the problem by filling the gaps related to information and handling mechanisms, it is too difficult to think the impact of these chemicals”, he added.
According to the officials even the cost for the disposal of some dangerous chemicals is too expensive for developing countries as they do not own disposal mechanisms. They stated that Ethiopia is forced to pay in foreign currency for the disposal of some dangerous chemicals due to the absence of disposal plants at home.
Hence, for both, Yohanes and Frenesh, implementing modern and strict chemicals registration and controlling mechanism with clearly identified accountability and transparency of producers and importers is a timely action.
Considering these side effects of chemical products and for the proper implementation of the 1075/2018 proclamation, EEC and MoTI started activities to implement modern chemicals registration system which hopes to have clear data of chemicals and for the smooth information flow for the future.
This registry system also aims for the timely disposal of wasted and expired chemicals, according to the authorities. Last week, the two government bodies announced that by 2021, they planned to start the registration system of chemicals and to implement a system of controlling and registering mechanism for importing and producing products.
According to Frenesh from the total chemical demand of the country only five percent is produced at home while the balance is imported. She said that it is vital to register every unit of imported chemical before entering in to the country and collecting data about the usage for the proper controlling of chemicals.
In addition, qualifying the local producers with continuous regulation about the production process, the wastage management system, the storage mechanism, the expiry date and collecting all unnecessary and expired chemicals is vital to minimize the threat coming from chemical effect.
By 2021, in addition to implementing the registry system for new produced and importing products, the two government authorities with other stakeholders have planned to collect data about every chemical product available in the country, to be followed by collecting the dangerous and expired ones for disposal. The registry system helps to know the nature of the chemical, production and expiry dates.
According to EEC Deputy Commissioner, in addition to implementing registration system of chemicals, Ethiopia gives attention to build the capacity of chemical disposal plants within ten years for all kinds of chemicals as it needs modern infrastructural and scientific system.
For Yohanes citizens have a right to live in clean and safe environment as enshrined in the FDRE Constitution. Hence, any producer, importer and relevant government body has also the responsibility to refrain from any activity that threatens the safety of the environment.
Any activity, investment and trade should not violate the constitution of the country and everyone has the responsibility to respect it, he said adding that Ethiopia is also investing highly to create environmentally friendly economy.
Not only the coming chemicals in the future all backlogged unnecessary and hazardous chemicals must be disposed properly at any cost.
According to the authorities, anyone who is engaged in the production and transaction of industrial chemicals has a responsibility to register every chemical with its production and expiry date, the country and producing companies imported from.
According to two government bodies, for the implementation of the registry system, currently rules and guidelines initiated from the proclamation are on their final phase. Up to now, even the disposal mechanism was individual without any system, but after the implementation of the registration system, the disposal responsibility to rely on one organ.
The Ethiopian herald January 5/2021
