EPA launches motor emissions trial testing program


Pursuant to its mandate, as set out in section 2 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act, 1994 (Act 490), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed guidelines for motor emissions and is in the process of transforming the guidelines into standards.

As part of that process of transformation and to ensure proper regulation of emissions in the country, EPA, in collaboration with the relevant stakeholders, has embarked on a program dubbed: ‘The Motor Emission Trial Testing program’.
 
The month-long nationwide trial testing program seeks to ensure that all motor vehicles and motorized equipment in the country and those imported into the country are less pollutant or fall within acceptable emission standards.
 
The testing of vehicles for their emission levels will be done free of charge during the trial period while fees will be charged subsequently as part of road worthy certification. Data generated from the trial testing program, apart from augmenting the vehicular emissions inventory in Ghana, will also serve as a useful guide in determining how realistic the motor emission standards are.   
 
Apex Pollution Control Company Limited (Apex-PCCL), the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA), National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD), National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) are collaborating with EPA in the trial tests.
 
Mr Daniel Amlalo, Executive Director, EPA, made these known at the launch of the program in Accra, on Friday.
 
Mr Amlalo noted that the non-existence of standards to control vehicular emissions would lead to continued and increased emission pollution from vehicles with accompanying adverse consequences for human health and the environment.
 
The trial tests, he said, would serve as a fore-runner for the soon-to-be-introduced mandatory motor emissions tests as part of road worthiness certification, adding that vehicles which did not meet the motor emissions standards would not be issued with Road Worthy Certificates.
 
In his address, Hon. Mahama Ayariga, Minister for the Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, said government had taken measures to reduce vehicle emissions and its impact on health through policy interventions such as phasing out of leaded gasoline, restrictions on age limit of vehicles imported into the country, deregulation of fuel importation in order that oil companies import high quality fuel, procurement of crude oil with low Sulphur content and mainstreaming of environmental issues by ensuring that Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) are undertaken for all transport sector policies, plans and programs.
 
Hon. Ayariga said to ensure that emission pollution was controlled and reduced, government, in collaboration with the private sector, would be introducing the emission testing of vehicles to go beyond the existing inspection regime which focused largely on the examination of the physical condition of vehicles.
 
He said reducing emission pollution would lead to improvement in fuel quality that would result in improved air quality, adding that vehicular emission standards would have to be enforced with existing traffic laws and regulations.
 
He said a sub-component program on vehicular emissions formed part of the evolving capacity-building program of   EPA to ensure sound management of the environment and, in part, respond to Ghana’s commitment under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
 
The Motor Emissions Trial Testing Program launch took place on the theme: ‘Clean Air for a Healthy Life’.
 
Source: ISD