EPA’s $624M Budget does not cater for oil preparations - Agency needs 165 more professionals to be effective

EPA’s $624M Budget does not cater for oil preparations – Agency needs 165 more professionals to be effective

Dec 25, 2018 News

By Kiana Wilburg

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be one of the key regulatory agencies in Guyana’s petroleum sector. However, the agency’s 2019 budget does not cater for oil preparations. This was confirmed with the EPA’s Head, Dr. Vincent Adams.
During an exclusive interview with this newspaper, the EPA Head said he does not have the human or financial resources needed for the proper management of the oil sector. In fact, the agency does not even have the human resources needed to be an effective regulatory body. In this regard, Dr. Adams said that currently, he has a staff of 97 officers. But for the EPA to be efficient, it needs a total of 262.
Further to this, Dr. Adams said that the agency is continuously borrowing the equipment of other ministries to do its work. It is also unable to do proper monitoring due to its poor fleet of vehicles.
Dr. Adams said, “My staff members are not trained to deal with this (oil) sector. I don’t have engineers on my staff. Most of them have a Degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Guyana. They are hard and dedicated workers, but they don’t have the science-based qualifications for the fundamental sectors we have to manage such as mining.”
The EPA Head continued, “I have one engineer, four chemistry majors and three biologists. I want to hire some more people, and get petroleum engineers, mining engineers, geologists, hydrologists, and chemical engineers. So before we can even get to preparing for oil, we need to get our human resources right to carry out our mandate, to fulfill our fundamental duties, and oil will soon be part of that…The reality is that we are understaffed. So I have to tackle all these things.”

EPA Head, Dr. Vincent Adams

The Environmental Engineer added, “I have to submit a supplemental early next year so I can get the funds to hire the professionals we need. I have made these issues known to Minister of State, Joseph Harmon and Finance Minister, Winston Jordan and they have been very supportive…”
Turning his attention to the oil sector, the EPA Head told Kaieteur News that the supplementary he is preparing for 2019, will take into account, the money needed to transform EPA into a tough oil and gas regulator.
He said, “Right now, I have $624M for 2019, but that did not take our preparations for oil into consideration. When I was brought on a few months ago, the budget preparation for the agency was already at an advanced stage. My first task when I came on was to do an assessment of the Agency and see where it is…And it needs major restructuring.”
FORENSIC AUDIT REVEALS
The issue of EPA being woefully understaffed was raised in a forensic audit report that was done by Chartered Accountant, Anand Goolsarran since 2015. But since then, nothing was done about it.
In the audit that was commissioned by the APNU+AFC administration, Goolsarran said that the agency needs an additional 165 officers to “fully and effectively” execute its mandate. He noted for example that EPA’s Compliance Department has 27 officers, but needs an additional 63 to be effective.
NO EIA DEPT
With the burgeoning oil and gas sector on the way, it will be incumbent on the EPA to sharpen its evaluation skills in several areas such as the review of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) that would be submitted by oil operators.
EIAs provide an assessment of the likely human environmental health impact, risk to ecological health, and changes to nature’s services that a project may have. They also provide some of the ways in which operators will go about protecting the environment as they pursue the exploitation of a nation’s resources.
Dr. Vincent Adams acknowledged that there are indeed concerns about the capacity of the EPA to properly review EIAs for the oil and gas sector. He noted however that this is an area that he intends to address with his staff once the funds become available.
In terms of the current structure, Dr. Adams said that there is no one department that is in charge of going through and monitoring EIAs to ensure that there is compliance by the oil operator.
Dr. Adams said, “We are not divided in such a way that we have one particular body of people or department that deals with EIAs. However, we are looking to put together a strategic plan that will address such issues. While we don’t have a section that monitors EIAs, we do have different individuals who are spread across the agency and they ensure that the requirements for an EIA are met…”