The National Environment Management Council (NEMC)
The National Environment Management Council (NEMC) has closed down Camel Cement, Premix concrete and AM Steel industries located at Mbagala Zakhem in the city while also penalising them with Sh160m, Sh40m and Sh60m respectively over polluting environment.
The NEMC Environment Officer Dr Madoshi Makene told the press on Thursday that such an operation was carried out following complaints of environmental pollution from residents surrounding the industries.
Dr Makene said the three industries will be closed down for unspecified period until such conditions of environment are improved and penalties met.
He said another industry in the area Alpha paints was found to be operating without an environmental certificate while workers also lacking safety gears.
NEMC Advocate Manchare Heche said during their survey mid-week, they discovered faults in manufacturing industries in the country.
Heche said their survey in the city and in Mwanza Region discovered hiccups in the industrial operations.
"We found out that many industries violated environmental regulations while also observing a large percentage of industries lacking NEMC environmental certificates and proper working gears" he said.
He added, "Many areas also lacked storages of wastewater. Equipment used by workers were also found to be in bad state forcing us to penalise those who failed to comply with the law".
The organ advocate also said large amounts of dust, wastewater and smoke had fueled them to inspect industries as they were going against environmental protection mandates.
"We issue a one week ultimatum to give time to owners of industries to fix their problems and ensure they conserve the environment before the launch of another inspection exercise," he said.
However, Managers of the closed industries could not comment on the exercise claiming they were not company's spokesmen.
