Over 40 businesses flunk environmental tests

More than 40 companies failed to meet standards set by the Addis Ababa Environmental Protection Authority (AAEPA).
Forty-one manufacturing companies, two plastic factories, and a hotel were unable to obtain Environment Impact Assessment Certification. AAEPA conducted over 100 environmental impact assessments (EIA).
The assessments are being done to help create a healthier environment and are mandated by directive no 21/98.
Gutema Moreda, Vice Manager of AAEPA says they are working to protect the city from a polluted environment.
AAEPA hands out environmental certificates for over 400 types of work including; manufacturing industries, mines and service orientated companies. AAEPA also supervises these businesses.
“The authority is doing its best to carry out its responsibility by strictly following environmental laws,” he said.
Addis Ababa is home to over 2,000 manufacturing companies, which is 65 percent of all the industrial businesses in the country. Most of them are located along river banks in the southern and western part of the city. They discharge their waste directly into the rivers and as many as 90 percent of these companies do not have any kind of treatment plant and release their solid, liquid and gaseous waste untreated into the environment.
This is just one of the reasons that city’s rivers are polluted. They also face increasing human population, uncontrolled urbanization, inadequate sanitation and infrastructure. People urinate, defecate and throw their trash in the rivers. Apparently Little Akaki River is the most polluted because it is surrounded by factories and the large open air shopping area. The assessments were conducted during the second quarter of the fiscal year.