‘Extracting groundwater for commercial purposes,’ LASG seals Coca-Cola, FrieslandCampina, Guinness factories

The Lagos State Water Regulatory Commission (LASWARCO) has sealed the factories belonging to Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company, FrieslandCampina WAMCO, and Guinness Nigeria for extracting groundwater for commercial purposes without proper authorisation.

Speaking on Tuesday in Lagos, Olowu Babatunde, director of technical services at LASWARCO, said the commission had been engaging with the three companies for over seven years, but they had either partially complied or failed to comply with regulations, prompting enforcement action.

“We operate a law that empowers us to regulate most of these heavy abstractors in Lagos State,” Babatunde said.

“Abstractors are individuals or entities that extract large quantities of groundwater for commercial purposes.

“So, these companies that we have sealed, basically three of them – Coca-Cola, FrieslandCampina and Guinness, abstract water in large quantities.

“And we have been engaging them over time. At least, I have been here for more than seven years now. We’ve been engaging these companies for more than seven years now.

“Some, either they do partial compliance, or some don’t comply at all. So, now that we started implementation of our regulation, we now compel them to fulfil all their regulatory demands.”

On Monday, Tokunbo Wahab, Lagos state commissioner for environment and water resources, during a press briefing on unregulated groundwater abstraction, said the environmental management protection law of 2017 empowers LASWARCO to regulate groundwater activities and impose penalties for unauthorised abstraction.

Wahab explained that unregulated groundwater extraction could lead to serious environmental consequences, including land subsidence and groundwater contamination.

According to Wahab, the government in 2020 introduced a 75 percent waiver on groundwater abstraction fees, but unfortunately, many organisations failed to take advantage of the incentive.

As a result, the commissioner said LASWARCO had been forced to take enforcement action against those who hadn’t complied.

Wahab noted that LASWARCO had issued letters to non-compliant organisations, giving them a 72-hour deadline to comply, where if they fail to do so, they will face penalties for operating without proper authorisation.