Noise Pollution Regulations Ready Soon

Noise pollution regulations will be ready by the end of this year after which anybody who makes unacceptable levels of noise will face heavy penalties, reports Geresom Musamali. The Police and the judiciary are already being trained in methods of enforcing the regulations and other environmental standards.The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) executive director, Dr. Henry Aryamanya Mugisha, said recently that the Police would be required to enforce the regulations rigorously as soon as they came into effect. Mugisha was speaking during the environmental picture exhibition at Nommo Gallery.“The drafting of standards for noise have been completed. Cabinet will soon scrutinise them and we hope that they will have been approved by November,” he said. He said since NEMA came into existence in 1985 it has co-ordinated with the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) to design an environment studies programme for the Universal primary Education (UPE) and that they were looking for ways to enhance it to cover higher educational levels.Mugisha said NEMA had also developed national standards on effluent discharge, adding that the standards were being enforced on new factories while already existing ones were being helped to make relevant adjustments.He said businesses that did not meet the standards and resisted change would have their plants shut down. Ends