Bothered by the unsavoury effects of lead to man and the environment, the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has said that it is ready to ensure that Nigerian markets are rid of lead-laden products.

Director-general of CPC, Babatunde Irukera, declared this at the Lead Paint Elimination Campaign organised by Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADev Nigeria), in Lagos on Friday, December 8, 2017.

Olusanya asserted this in a presentation titled: “The Role of Consumer Protection Council in Substandard Lead Paint Elimination In Nigeria.”

Olusanya stated that “lead in paint that appears intact is not necessarily harmful. However, it produces dangerous lead dust when damaged or during renovations.”

According to him, it affects children’s brains and causes harm in adults.

Represented by Fatimah Ojo at the event, which took place at Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) building, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, the CPC DG noted that the Council’s mandates involve ensuring that consumers were served only safe and standardised products and services.

“Our mandates generally involve active and proactive roles that ensure safe and standardised products and services in our market places for consumers. This issue of eliminating substandard lead paints in our markets is not an exception.

“You will thus agree with me that CPC is well poised to carry out the role of ensuring that our market places are rid of lead-laden paints.”

He also reiterated that “CPC is an important and effective organ of government whose role contributes to rid our markets of harmful and substandard products and services such as substandard lead paints.”

Mr. Olubunmi Olusanya of the Ministry of Environment on his part disclosed that the irrational behaviours of some commercial bus attendants, popularly known as conductors, have been linked to the frequent inhalation of lead found in the premium motor spirit (PMS) known as petrol.

The Federal Ministry of Environment, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Paint Manufacturers Association (PMA) were among the agencies and associations represented at the event.

Professor Babajide Alo of the Department of Chemistry, University of Lagos (UNILAG), who is SRADev’s technical adviser, moderated the event, which was chaired by Olusanya of the Minister of Environment.

Executive director of SRADev, Leslie Adogame, noted that all paint samples from his 2008 findings, including enamel and plastic paint, showed high lead concentrations exceeding 90 parts per million (ppm) limits.

He said: “Out of the 10 countries from where paint samples were collected and analysed for total lead contents, two countries, Nigeria and Tanzania, showed very high percentage of samples containing more than 90 ppm of lead. Nigeria and Tanzania were followed by Mexico, South Africa, Belarus, and Senegal. Thailand had the lowest per cent of paint samples containing lead in excess of 90 ppm.

“In the absence of any mandatory standard for lead in paints, industries, big and small, are using lead without regard for its environmental and health impacts.”

Olusanya noted that global efforts to eliminate lead paint started when the first resolution on lead paint was introduced at the World Health Summit in 2002.

In 2009, he said, the International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM) identified lead in paint as an emerging policy issue and invited the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to establish a global partnership to promote phasing out the use of lead in paints and also serve as its Secretariat.

This gave birth to the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint (Lead Paint Alliance).

He added: “The economic and social costs associated with childhood lead exposure are very high, while costs associated with eliminating the use of added lead compounds in decorative and other paints are low.”

Senior standard officer of SON, Jessy Orun, in his presentation titled: “National Industrial Standards and Specification for Lead paints in Nigeria”, noted: “Further to the Federal Government’s directive on ease of doing business, compliance to standard specifications for paint, which is <9oppm, would facilitate international trade.”

He disclosed that a heavy metal testing laboratory for chem-tech products would soon be operational at the new SON laboratory complex in Ogba, Lagos.

At the end of the programme, the participants adopted SRADev’s Roadmap for Lead Paint Elimination and Management in Nigeria.

By Innocent Onwuji

Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Sen. Olanrewaju Tejuoso, on Thursday, December 7, 2017 said the Basic Health Provision Fund provided under National Health Act 2014 would generate about N54 billion for health intervention programmes.

The senator made this known during an advocacy meeting with Legislative Network for Universal Health Coverage in Abuja.

Tejuoso said one of the major concerns of the National Assembly was the implementation of one per cent consolidated revenue to fund basic health care provision fund in 2018 budget.

He added that the Act provides that one per cent consolidated revenue should be a statutory transfer the agencies; meaning that the fund would not be accessed the way the budget was usually done.

He said: “It means the fund will go into particular pockets as grant to provide basic healthcare to Nigerians.

“It is supposed to be a minimum of one per cent of consolidated revenue to support the funding coming from partners; part of that money will, however, not go into the fight against malaria.”

He said the money would be domiciled with the agencies and if unspent, it would be extended to the following year, stressing that the fund would be accruing and accumulating.

He added that while government was waiting for loans to fund the budget, the money would be available to support the health system.

Dr Gafar Alawode, the Chief of Party Health Finance and Governance, an NGO, said the Legislative Network for Universal Health Coverage was on advocacy visit to the senate committee chairman to seek for funding for malaria elimination programmes.

He commended government’s commitment in reducing malaria burden in the country over the years, noting that evidence had shown that malaria cases dropped from 42 per cent in 2010 to 27 per cent in 2015.

He, however, said “malaria cases were currently on the increase again.”

He noted that World Health Organisation records revealed that in 2017, Nigeria had one million new cases of malaria, which was above recorded cases in 2016.

He said “this calls for concern because donors funding has been dwindling.

“Donors are shifting focus to counterpart-based funding; they are showing commitment to countries that are ready to increase domestic funding of malaria elimination programmes.”

He added that the group wanted Senate to lead the cause for increased funding for malaria programmes because Nigeria was one of the countries with highest burden of the disease in the world.

By Mustapha Yauri

The Federal Government says programmes of Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADev Nigeria) Nigeria have contributed significantly to its efforts to implement the Minimata Convention on mercury phase-out.

Ibrahim Jibril, Environment Minister of State, disclosed this exclusively to EnviroNews on Thursday, December 7, 2017 at the final National Dissemination Workshop organised by SRADev in Lagos.

Represented by Olubunmi Olusanya, the minister said contributions from SRADev’s sensitisation programmes formed part of the ministry’s submissions on the phase out/phase down of mercury in products.

Since April 2015, SRADev had embarked on the project “Contributing to the Preparation/Implementation of the Minimata Convention on Mercury, with a Focus on Developing Strategies to Implement Mercury-added Product Phase-out Provisions of the Minimata Convention in Nigeria”. It targeted a deadline of May 2017, but had to extend it to December.

In his opening remarks, Okusanya, who was chairman of the occasion, noted that the “Minamata Convention is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury pollution, and Article 4 of the convention deals with mercury-added products.”

Nigeria signed the Convention in 2013 and made efforts to ratify it in May 2017.

He noted that the ratification was “to ensure that our country does not end up as a dumping ground for mercury-added products after the rest of the world phases them out.”

According to Prof. Babajide Alo, the technical adviser to SRADev, Nigeria has signed the document and sent to New York.

The professor of Chemistry, while congratulating Nigeria for efforts so far to ratify the Convention, noted that “we have the Minimata Initial Assessment (MIA), but its implementation is why we are here.”

Going down memory lane, the don said 195 countries had come together and agreed that mercury is a pollutant of concern; hence they agreed to do something about it which led to the convention at Minimata, a village in Japan where people were dying of mercury poisoning.

Article 4 of the Convention read in part: “Each Party shall not allow, by taking appropriate measures, the manufacture, import or export of mercury-added products listed in Part I of Annex A after the phase-out date specified for those products (Year 2020), except where an exclusion is specified in Annex A or the Party has a registered exemption pursuant to Article 6. 2.”

Rico Euripidou, a South African international expert in mercury phase out/phase down, presented the keynote paper of the workshop. He made his presentation through Skype to the audience, as he could not make it to Nigeria before the workshop.

In his “Overview of the Mercury Convention: Expectations from Mercury-added Products phase-out Obligations”, Mr. Euripidou praised Nigeria for strategies adopted to achieve the phase-out, and encouraged the country to continue on that path.

He said: “We have been following the project in Nigeria. Nigeria has made a lot of progress with its sound strategies. We are very pleased. This convention represents a major milestone. This is only the beginning of the beginning.”

The executive director of SRAdev, Leslie Adogame, in his welcome speech, said SRADev was just complementing government’s efforts via helping to develop strategy to achieve the phase-out.

He disclosed that his organisation’s works had the backing of the Federal Government through the Ministry of Environment, the National Agency for Food and drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and other agencies as well as the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN).

In a goodwill message, Anthony Hotton from NAFDAC said the agency, which was at the vanguard of the zero-mercury journey, “is still 100 per cent interested in the campaign.”

The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), through its Lagos State coordinator, Nosa Aigbedion, said the agency “is happy and ready to partner with anybody for a healthy environment.”

The workshop was wrapped up by status/updates of mercury-added products regulations in Nigeria by NESREA and NAFDAC.

By Innocent Onwuji