Environment portfolio to be placed under Ministry of Presidency

Jul 29, 2016 News

The Environment portfolio of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment will soon be stripped from that ministry and placed under the Ministry of the Presidency, in an effort to remove potential conflicts.

Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Raphael Trotman

Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Raphael Trotman made this disclosure on Wednesday before the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Natural Resources.
Trotman told Committee members that the decision was made after a series of consultations between himself, President David Granger and the Minister of State, Joseph Harmon.
The Department of Environment will come at a time when the Ministry seeks to focus more on oil, gas, bauxite, gold and forestry.
“Out of the 24 hours in a day, oil and gas is taking up about 18 hours, so it requires intense attention, and so a Department of the Environment is being put together in the Ministry of the Presidency,” Trotman told the Committee.
He explained that the Environmental Protection Agency; the Wildlife Management and the Protected Areas Commission will come under the Department of the Environment.
Earlier this week, Minister Harmon said that the Office of Climate Change and several other environment-related areas are already under the management of the Ministry of the Presidency and it is the President’s intention to ensure that all of these entities are in the same place.
“And so if you are responsible for extraction then the entity that is responsible for supervising you must be able to do so without having to report to the same minister that is responsible for the same people who are doing the extraction,” he said.

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