Residents of Kpone in the Greater Accra Region are complaining about what they term as excess poisonous smoke from industries at the Free Zones enclave.
The residents say they are often diagnosed with respiratory related disease due to the smoke.
According to them, some companies are not abiding by the air quality guidelines set by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hence the pollution.
“The pollution mostly done in the morning and evening make breathing quite impossible. Irritation of the eye among others seem to be common,” a resident said.
The residents are calling on the appropriate authorities to act to avoid anything untoward.
“The impact is severe and children are not left out. We sometimes cough blood. For how long can we continue to endure this? A father of two asked.
One of the companies, Rider Steel has admitted to the pollution caused by the company citing challenges with its furnaces.
Finance Controller of Rider Steel, Prodeep Dash says they have procured chimneys and other air pollution control systems which will help them meet EPA pollution limit.
“The smoke is as a result of the shutdown we experienced last year and starting operations just two months ago. I don’t think we will deliberately pollute the environment,” Dash said.
Adom News’ Kwame Yankah who visited the steel company saw procured equipment yet to be installed.
Meanwhile, Tema EPA boss, Irene Opoku said EPA is enforcing compliance of the pollution limit.
“We are not sleeping as people are making it sound. Before they started operations, visited the company and realized that they were not done with the installation because they were importing some of the stuff from India,” she said.
According to her, EPA directed them not to operate all furnaces until the necessary installment had been done.
“Until the installation is completed, they are not supposed to operate fully. We have also asked them to do air quality monitoring and present the results to us to see whether they are operating within the permissible level or not,” she indicated.
The necessary action will be done when we determine their compliance with our directive.