By Olimatou Coker
National Environment Agency (NEA), yesterday certified 40 environmental inspectors who underwent a week-long training on basic enforcement of environmental laws.
Speaking at the NEA head office in Kanifing where the event was held, NEA’s Omar Bah, spoke on the objective of the gathering saying it was meant to capacitise their inspectors. This in turn will help enhance the enforcement capacities of the inspectors, he said.
“In order to enforce the environment laws, the inspectors need to be capacitised,” Omar Said.
The training was done in collaboration with other institutions that had a stake in law like the Gambia police and other security institutions in the country.
Environment minister Lamin Dibba, highlighted the importance of taking care of our environment, saying our livelihood as a people depended on it. He also talked about the health and economic implication of not taking care of our environment.
“This training is timely. It will help the participants on how to exercise their functions at all levels,” he stated.
He thanked the management of NEA for coming up with an initiative to train inspectors to enhance their skills and knowledge in environmental law.
Dodou Trawally, executive director of NEA, said the Agency deals with laws, particularly environmental laws.
He said: “We enforce laws and participate in court matters related to issues of regulations. That’s why we think it is important to train 40 environment inspectors. We believe it is very key to train them on basic enforcement of environment laws. We are hoping to have a similar training next year.”
