South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"

By Awan Achiek
The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in collaboration with the government on Tuesday launched campaign to halt the flow of plastic waste into the Nile River.
Simon Oswan, the IGAD Monitoring and Evaluation Expert, said the three-year project funded to a tune of 3 million U.S. dollars by the Swedish embassy in Ethiopia, aims to protect biodiversity and keep the environment clean from plastic pollution.
“We know that plastics have been a big problem to our water bodies, inland waters as well as marine waters and therefore, this campaign is ensuring that we minimize the plastic pollution,” Oswan told journalists during the launching ceremony of the cleaning campaign in Juba.
He noted that the multi-stakeholder partnership brings together all the actors working on marine litter and plastic pollution prevention and reduction.
“We have been working with the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries in South Sudan, and now we are also working with the City Council of Juba to ensure that we keep our environment clean against plastic pollution,” Oswan said.
Onyoti Adigo Nyikuach, Minister of Livestock and Fisheries said the rampant disposal of plastic materials in Juba poses risks to aquatic habitats.
“In our food and beverages, such a life including the medical or health industry, where everything in medicine is now almost plastic. Plastics have a devastating impact on the environment. They destroy aquatic habitats and can entangle aquatic animals like the fish we eat,” Adigo said.
He said plastics are facilitating transport of invasive species across ecosystems and habitats.
“They can also be deposited through sediment loading on the river bed, leading to potential impact on aquatic animals, even terrestrial animals like cows, goats, sheep and others,” Adigo disclosed.
Flora Gabriel Modi, Mayor of Juba City Council said they are going to sensitize the public to minimize dumping and destroying the environment.
“We are going to give them each quarter and the council should give awareness to the people around the area, the native. And also we are going to take it very seriously, because if you go around Juba, we have a lot of waste,” Flora said.
She said that they are going to impose heavy fines on those found dumping plastic bottles in the city.