By Yusupha Bojang
Residents of Sanyang have vowed to protest against operational destructions of Nissim fishmeal factory despite requesting the factory to produce its environment impact assessment report.
Nissim, a Mauritanian own private fishmeal processing factory located at Sanyang beach is being alleged by locals more especially individuals working at the sea site of a constant destruction of the environment including their businesses.
In an interview with The Voice many employees at the beach said the on-going destruction of the fishmeal company is not only impacting on the environment but including their livelihoods as locals, stressing that it might have the potential to destroy their future aspiration as citizens.
Muhammed Lamin Manneh an employee at the tourism industry said the establishment of the Nissim fishmeal factory has created fear among people who wanted to invest their resources in the beach as result of constant release of bad odour and pumping of liquid waste into the sea which he alleged causes skin infection on tourists and other people.
“Lot of tourists are now complaining of the odour being constantly release from the fishmeal factory making it difficult to even breathe in fresh air forcing tourists to leave for Casamance in Senegal. In few days back about 34 tourists have left the beach to Senegal due to release of bad odour,” he said.
Sainey Badjie a tourist taxi driver stated that business at the moment is getting worst stating that tourists are no more hiring trips to go to the beach due to the odour coming from the fishmeal factory.
“The amount of environmental destructions happening at the beach is unimaginable. People have now limit swimming in the sea because of fear to contract any skin cancer. So, we are only waiting on the government to resolve the continuous destruction of our tourism industry as locals.
We have just held a meeting as people working at the beach where we discussed plans to stage a protest and occupy the gate of the factory until our plight is resolved. I can tell you that only foreign nationals are working at the factory which is causing havoc to our business as citizens,” he said.
The secretary of the Village Development Committee Yusupha Jassey said the current (VDC) has never had an (MOU) with the fishmeal factory, saying that is against regulation of local government act.
“Since we came into office as village development committee (VDC) the issue of a (MOU) was followed between us and the factory but to no avail. And we know it is against local government act. But again what we are demanding as a committee from the government is to provide us with the factory’s environment impact assessment report (EIA) so we can know whether such environmental regulations have been conducted or not to ascertain their establishment,” he said.
Responding to allegations, supervisor of the fishmeal factory Sheriff Bojang said accusation pointed against the company were all baseless mentioning that as the issues of releasing bad odour at the beach was mend by the company after they were task by the national environment agency (NEA) to work on controlling the odour.
“We have tried to rise up the chimney of the factory to avoid the impact of the release smoke around the beach and the community after we were advised by the (NEA) to fix a treatment plant. But I can assure you that we cannot have full control of the odour because this is a processing factory,” he said.
Nissim in the past has been ordered by (NEA) for closure in order for it to construct a treatment plant that will allow release of unharmed liquid waste into the sea.