The executive body of Kenya's Ministry of Environment, NEMA, has refused to approve the 61-storey Palm Exotjca skyscraper's environmental impact plan to be built in Watamu.
The project, which has been ventilated for two years now and for which only a green light was expected from the environmental authority, has in fact been blocked in the first instance with the request to the designers and builders to submit a new study with safe parameters for the environmental impact.
Nor does the daily newspaper "Daily Nation" report in today's paper edition, specifying that the letter to the company, which was supposed to start erection work on the skyscraper as soon as possible, is dated 30 January. The letter calls for all the parameters for the construction of the building to be redefined or for another location to be sought. The signature is that of General Manager Mamo Mamo. In the communiqué, however, it is specified that the Palm Exotjica company may appeal to the Environment Court (NET) of Kenya.
Mamo, according to the Nation, said that in the current project would not be respected some environmental values of Watamu, as reported by all associations involved in environmental protection, and would not provide adequate guarantees of solidity as a building, both for the land where it would be built and for its height.
There are still no reactions from the international group led by the Italian Giuseppe Moscarino.