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

By Simon Deng & Arich Deng Anyar
Water bottling companies in Juba have threatened to shut down operations, due to high environmental fees levied on them by the National Ministry of Environment and Forestry.
Adam Kubanja, the Chairperson of the Association of South Sudan Manufacturers (ASSM), said in a statement on Monday, that the high fees levied on imported plastic bottles has resulted into shortages of plastic bottles.
“In the coming days, Juba is going to have a great shortage of bottled drinking water as the manufacturers are shutting down production and sales, the closure of these companies means over 6000 youth will be unemployed,” said Kubanja.
ASSM called on the Ministry of Trade and Industry and other relevant authorities to intervene in order to resolve the impasse.
“It is highly regrettable that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry through its implementing partner PLASCOM, have solely come up with the policy without consultation with the stakeholders and subsequently effected the policy,” said Kubanja.
Joseph Africano Bartel, the Undersecretary in the National Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said that the environmental fees are being levied on these companies in a bid to regulate plastic pollution.
“This environmental fee is part of the appropriation bill, and anybody who doesn’t want to comply with the law should be ready to close and move their factories to countries that will allow them to pollute their environment,” said Africano at a press conference on Monday.
“We would like to inform the public that the imposition of environmental fees on polluting materials is a global practice, and we expect the water bottling companies to be conscious and concerned about the impacts of their products to our environment,” he added.
Africano disclosed that the 2024/2025 budget appropriation bill, introduced environmental fee of 30 South Sudan Pounds for a 500 milliliter bottle and 40 SSP for a 600 millimeter bottle, adding that due to the depreciation of the SSP pound they agreed on 1 cent of a dollar per bottle.
He said that over 1 trillion plastic bottles since 2005 have been littered in rivers, streams, wetlands, streets including agricultural lands in major towns including Juba, Torit, Wau and Malakal.
Africano revealed that the environmental fee is being implemented by the National Revenue Authority.
“We all know that when it rains, all the plastic bottles from our streams are washed to the river and now we have billions of bottles in the wetlands. And we know that plastic bottles do have carcinogenic materials that causes cancer,” he said.
Carcinogenic materials are substances that can cause cancer. These materials can be found in the environment, in food, and in some medical procedures.