Kenya is grappling with environmental challenges owing to a growing population, increased urbanisation and industrialisation.
The triple factors have resulted in environmental degradation since only about 45 percent of solid waste generated in the country is recycled, reused or transformed into beneficial form.
Despite existence of laws and policies guiding waste management, weak implementation and poor practices have led to the current poor state of waste management which includes dumping, uncollected litter and lack of garbage segregation making pollution worse.
The National Environment Management Authority (Nema), the body responsible for managing the environment, has come under fire for failing to rein in the situation by ensuring facilities are put in proper and efficient waste handling.
Nema has turned to technology in its operations as it steps up efforts geared towards increasing efficiency in addressing environmental pain.
This is through leveraging a geographical information system (GIS) laboratory that collates and analyses geo-fenced data, both spatial and statistical, to generate meaningful output.
The lab has made it possible to map and keep an inventory of facilities that fall under Nema’s regulatory framework, boosting planning or random sampling for compliance assessments as well as targeted inspections.
Nema director-general Mamo Boru Mamo says the GIS lab has made it possible to digitise data.
Risk map
He said that Nema has mapped out and developed an inventory of all facilities in Kenya and categorised them into low-, medium and high-risk facilities.
High-risk facilities involve projects that have high environmental impact like exploration of oil, construction of mega projects like rail building, oil pipeline, abattoirs.
Medium-risk facilities include petrol stations, facilities within a national park, large-scale spraying of crops, and irrigation.
Low-risk facilities are projects with less impact on the environment like building houses, warehouses, among other facilities.
The facilities are given co-ordinates which are plotted and overlaid with satellite images and other maps to assess possible environmental threats used in impact assessment licensing.
This makes it easier to know where the facilities are as well as design efficient enforcement plans, compliance sampling and targeted inspection actions increasing efficiency in addressing environmental issues in the process.
“If it is an abattoir in Kitengela for instance, you give it a coordinate then the officer on the ground will go there and get all the details about it, for example, whether it has been licensed, under construction, or undertaken an environmental audit,” said Mr Mamo.
“This has helped in targeted enforcement action. From my office, I will just click and see whether a facility has been licensed or not or whether its audit is due or if there are other environmental issues that need to be addressed. This has helped in increased efficiency and addressing incidences of pollution real time.”
The lab has made it possible to capture data of regulated facilities on the eligibility of a facility or business establishment for various Nema licensing regimes.
This data is analysed to filter out potential facility candidates for various licences and handed over to compliance and enforcement for necessary action.
Further to this, Nema in 2021 fully migrated all its services to e-Citizen platform, opening an avenue for all Nema licence applications to be made online, establishing a one-stop licensing centre with licences under one roof.
Proprietors are now paying for licences from wherever they are thanks to digitisation.
Through this, it has increased revenue collection due to the compliance status of different entities being visible at the click of a button.
When applying for effluent discharge licences, said Mr Mamo, it is now a requirement for proponents to provide GPS co-ordinates of their facilities and after the lapse of one year, the data can be filtered by those who have not renewed, plotted in a map and forwarded to compliance and enforcement for a review.
“We will know that a facility is not compliant and we will send our officers to the ground. Our officers will [assess] whether a facility is licensed, has done annual environmental audits, and its status of compliance. This has helped to seal revenue leakage, proper enforcement and up-to-date licensing compliance,” he said.
Last year, the agency undertook 3,113 inspections across the 47 counties, making 28 arrests for environmental offences as well as 860 environmental audits targeting high-risk facilities.
They also issued 5,516 environmental impact assessment (EIA) licences for high-risk and medium-risk facilities while for low-risk facilities hit 6,822 after the Authority reduced statutory timelines for obtaining such licences for low-risk facilities from 21 days to five.
“We also responded to 587 environmental incidences reported to us by the public drawn from the incident register,” said Mr Mamo.
Moreover, Nema closed down 42 facilities along the Nairobi River that were issued with restoration orders for pollution while another 30 industries were put under compliance assistance.
It is against this backdrop that Nema and its boss bagged three awards during the third Africa Public Sector Conference and Awards (APSCA) 2022 ceremony in Ghana on May 13, 2022 — an annual gathering of civil/public servants, bringing together senior decision-makers and stakeholders in the public and private sectors.
Nema was named as the environmental regulator of the year 2022 while Mr Mamo was recognised as APSCA chief executive officer of the year and the overall best CEO.
“They had a team last year that assessed regulators in a number of African countries. They looked at social media and mainstream coverage of Nema, activities it has been undertaking tabulating the specific activities,” he said.
Plastic ban
At the centre of the recognition, said the Nema boss, was the success in the implementation of plastic bag ban in 2017.
Since the ban on single-use plastic carrier bags, 253 environmental cases have been prosecuted and compliance levels have hit 95 percent from 68 percent in earlier years.
The success has seen Nema receive Sh1 billion from Green Climate Fund, being the first African country to be funded by GCF as well as another Sh800 million from World Bank for managing electronic waste and Sh800 million from Global Environmental Facility.
Currently, Nema is mentoring three African countries including Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Botswana to access the fund.
Mr Mamo is, however, aware that the war has not been won as they still face challenges, including porous border points by neighbours yet to ban the product, unscrupulous business people who bring in the bags and poor attitude from citizens who want to use the banned plastic bags.
In response, the Authority has stationed environmental officers at one-stop border points, engaged with police and the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) officials in policing the borders as well as working closely with the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and Interpol for enforcement.
Further, county governments allowing the proliferation of illegal carrier bags have been warned that they will have a case to answer.
This, coupled with stringent penalties put in place, including a fine of between Sh2 million and Sh4 million, jail term of one to two years or or both, have helped in targeted enforcement action.
Manufacturer responsibility
“We are winning this war but we still have five percent that we need to work on. Seventeen African countries have come to benchmark with us as well as Pakistan from Asia how we are implementing the plastic bags ban,” he said.
Apart from the enforcement, Nema is also working with the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) on Extended User Responsibility regulation that requires a producer of a product to take responsibility for that product.
Currently before Parliament, Mr Mamo said that once the regulation is approved and gazetted, recycling will be improved as producers will take responsibility for post-consumer products through a take-back scheme.
“We are transitioning from linear waste management to circular economy where we encourage recycling. This, as 70 percent of waste produced in the country is organic with plastic making up only 10 percent,” said the Nema boss.
