The Executive Director of Environmental Protection Agency, Dr Henry Kwabena Kokofu has hinted that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will soon stem institutions’ systematic failures with law suits.

According to him, to ensure that State Institutions work effectively, the EPA intends “to be hard on these State Institutions, force them to live up to expectation” by dragging them to court for their failure to perform as expected.

He made this revelation while responding to a question posed by the Host of Joy FM's Personality Profile, Lexis Bill if preventing noise pollution in Accra is part within the remit of the EPA.

In response, he said “Yes, very much so. We do have noise monitoring systems and once we get the complaints, we troop in there to see what is happening.

“Churches yes, but off late, night clubs and bars that have sprung up in residential areas are becoming nuisance for residents and the complaints have been coming, we have had calls to close down bars and other facilities to force them to adhere to the rules.”

He said educating the public on noise making lies with the local governance system, the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies. "They have in their by-laws, these measures to curb some of these things within their jurisdiction, adding that the EPA comes in when things get out of hand

He further explained that institutional failure over the years has not helped the EPA in addressing issues on noise pollution.

“There are a lot of these activities going on and EPA is up to the task but again institutional failure over the years has not helped. People do not even know that as a church, you cannot go ahead and then make all manner of noise and go scot free,” he said.

Contributing on the topic of burning of excavators of miners by the military as a way of putting an end to the menace of galamsey, he noted that he is in support of any action that will halt the onslaught on our environmental landscape, adding that the burning of the excavators should “serve as a deterrent, a great deal of deterrent to those who are involved in it.”

He said “we cannot sit aloof whiles a few of our kinsmen’s take the law into their hands, out of greed, out of non-respect for rules and regulations, they plunder all of us into an abysmal doldrums of despondency, indeed a quagmire that we find ourselves. So it calls for an extra effort as I said and burning the excavators should be a warning itself.”