The leadership and management of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have embarked on a familiarization tour to enable cross-governmental advocacy, leadership, and participation to address key structural barriers and stimulate inter-sectoral collaboration and coherence.

Abu Bakar S. Massaquoi, the executive Chairman and team at the EPA rolled out a constructive engagement of the regional offices to assess operations and get a sense of their activities and operations. They engaged the management teams of the regional offices in Bo, Kenema, Kono, and Makeni, respectively, to commend them and discuss work shares on the decentralization of the mandate of the agency.

The Chairman noted the challenges faced and assured them of the agency’s commitment, and underscored the significance of scientific field reporting, monitoring, and capacity building, which they are working tirelessly to sort out.

The engagement was also reached to different chiefdoms and district stakeholders, the heads of regional state institutions such as the Police Force, the military, and the resident ministers, which was a move to have an inclusive operation and service delivery.

The Chairman in all the engagements emphasized the need for the security forces and community stakeholders to collaborate with the EPA to enforce compliance with environmental laws, expand enforcement and compliance activities, and incentivize support for effective partnership.

The respective engaged bodies shared their total interest in the operations of the EPA and confirmed that environmental crimes are prevalent but reaffirmed their resolve to include the agency in its provincial security committee (PROSEC), all in a bid to enforce environmental laws that keep violators accountable and compliant, as they further commended the leadership and team and assuring them of their continued effort to replicate the mandate of the agency and build a sustainable environment in the country