Somaliland bans plastic bag trade
Mustafe
Sulub Muhumed
Somaliland
financial minister Hussien Ali Duale has banned the imports of
plastic bags.
In a
statement the minister warned traders not to import any kind
of plastic bags.
A year ago,
the former the minister of Trade, Mr Nuh declared that the
government had banned all imports of plastic bags. But there was no
effective control in place to stop importing and trading from
plastic bags.
Plastic bags
are everywhere, every time and everyone goes to the market and
groceries people use them.
The community
welcomes this act to ban plastic bags because they feel its harmful
effect.
There is no
industry to produce these plastics in Somaliland, it gets them from
abroad. Merchants ignore orders to stop importing plastic bags.
Until this
year the government didn’t take any action to enforce its order. The
order from the minister of Financial is a warning to merchants
that police
and customs officials are now under orders to
burn any
plastic bas entering to the country.
But not alternative to the plastic bags has been offered.
