National Environment Management Council (NEMC) lawyer, Manchare Heche (L)shows the area where the government has ordered Slipway Hotel management to stop further constructions.
construction along the Indian Ocean,the National Environment Management Council (NEMC) declared in Dar es Salaam yesterday.
NEMC’s Legal Officer Manchare Heche said the Minister of State in Vice-President’s Office (Environment) Dr Binilith Mahenge gave the order.
He said early this week the hotel was served with a notice to stop pouring debris into the ocean.
Apparently, the hotel has been busy creating a space to put up a structure close to the Indian Ocean waters.
Heche said legal action would follow and management be forced to close down the hotel and stop operations country if they defy the notice.
“The minister's directive wants the management to stop construction because it liters the ocean,” said Heche.
The hotel authorities are push sand and big rocks into the ocean in during the morning at low tide.
He said Slipway violated environmental law which has prompted public complaints about government for laxity.
NEMC would form a committee of relevant stakeholders to discuss the matter and advise whether or not it should bring it to court.
What remains is close watch on the hotel owner after the ministerial order and see if construction would continue. There are reports that the construction in the area is causing soil erosion.
Business people, speaking to this reporter at different times on condition of anonymity, said they were surprised to see sand and rocks being taken into the ocean.
The hotel’s legal officer Ms Jemima Mawenya admitted the hotel was carrying out the exercise, but said they had applied and got the permit from NEMC to do so.
She expressed surprise at NEMC turning against them. “But all in all we are ready to follow what NEMC orders us to legally resolve the matter.”
End January 2013, the government announced it would close beach hotels that released sewage into the ocean.
Former Minister of State in the Vice-President’s Office responsible for environment, Dr Terezya Huvisa, told a parliamentary committee in 2013 that the exercise which started with a brief closure of two hotels would continue unless the facilities implemented better ways of sewage disposal.
The action would be extended to industries and other facilities polluting the environment, Dr Huvisa told the Parliament Committee on Land, Tourism and Environment.
In the same year the minister closed the Double Tree and Giraffe Ocean View hotels located in Msasani Peninsula and Jangwani Beach for polluting the ocean. The hotels have since been reopened.
Other three hotels got a warning and ordered to ensure they stopped polluting the environment.
Dr Huvisa said inspections carried out earlier the previous year revealed that six hotels had sewerage systems that led directly to the Indian Ocean, contrary to the law.
“According to the strategies set, year 2013 would see the banning of more hotels…steps towards the six hotels is just the beginning” Dr Huvisa told the committee.
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