These companies, Nigerian Bottling Company (Coca-Cola), FrieslandCampina (Peak Milk), and Guinness Nigeria Plc, have been operating outside regulatory compliance.
LASWARCO's Director of Technical Services, Olowu Babatunde, announced this during a Tuesday enforcement operation in Lagos.
Despite seven years of engagement to encourage compliance, LASWARCO has been unable to secure cooperation from these firms.
“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, FreislandCampina and Guinness, abstract water in large quantities,” said Babatunde.
He noted that the companies either partially comply or fail to comply altogether, despite years of engagement.
“Some, either they do partial compliance, or some don’t comply at all. So, now that we started the implementation of our regulation, we now compel them to fulfil all their regulatory demands,” Babatunde said.
This enforcement action followed a press conference on unregulated groundwater extraction held by Tokunbo Wahab, the Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, on Monday.
Wahab emphasized that the Environmental Management Protection Law of 2017 grants LASWARCO the authority to regulate groundwater activities and impose penalties for unauthorized extraction.
He warned that unregulated groundwater extraction could result in severe environmental issues, such as land subsidence and contamination of groundwater.
The commissioner also mentioned that in 2020, the government provided a 75 percent waiver on groundwater abstraction fees, but compliance remained low.
This situation prompted LASWARCO to take enforcement measures against violators.
Wahab stated that notifications were sent to organizations that failed to comply, granting them a 72-hour deadline to adhere to the regulations. He also indicated that penalties would be enforced on those that persisted in operating without the necessary authorization.