Three months after publishing the “Black Soot” investigation that was carried with the support and supervision of the Arab Reporters Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), the Palestinian Ministry Of Transportation launched an environmental safety patrol inspection for on road vehicles to examine the percentage of smoke and gas emission coming from vehicles that run on Diesel and Gasoline in different Palestinian provinces

The Ministry held training sessions for its directorates in the West Bank on the use of specialized equipment for testing and preparing to announce the informal work on the roads

The director general of licensing authority in the Ministry of Transport and Communication, Farouk Abdul Rahim said that this patrol comes within the developed framework to provide services for its citizens, adding that it contains technical and environmental devices used to examine the exhausts of gasoline and diesel vehicles. He pointed out that the vehicles will be randomly checked and if they don’t meet the conditions will be removed from the streets and requesting the owners fix their vehicle condition

Abdul Rahim explained that there will be a deployed control over the dynamometer center alongside to a vehicle inspection campaign to conduct further tests.

The black soot investigation that was published on AJYAL Radio Network, highlighted the absence of the vehicle exhaust examination in the dynamometer center coming among 15 centers in the west bank prior to the license renewals, given that these examinations are mandatory. The investigation discovered absence of control over the dynamometer centers and their carelessness in conducting the required examinations