PPP/C leaders and the Environmental Protection Agency

Apr 21, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

The new PPP has made a living discarding almost everything that the departed coalition envisioned and put in place, including good ones. But some of the positives that the coalition introduced, PPP leaders have not jettisoned, but claimed credit. One such smartly claimed credit was for enhanced EIA regulations at the pivotal, but comatose, EPA; an EPA where Vincent Adams and the previous government laid good groundwork for the prudent shouldering of vital oil stewardship obligations.
With that shameless seizure of others work, several questions surface, which I place before Guyana’s President and Vice President. Since His Excellency and the Vice President have made an industry of whimpering silence, no answers of any kind – honest, partial, selective – are expected. I ask anyway.
First, why are they not taking credit for stopping the revision of the EPA Act which is 25 years old, and created since the agency’s inception, but conspicuously doesn’t address the oil & gas industry which is new to us and causing unprecedented challenges?
Second, why are they not taking credit for withdrawing the EPA court case against Exxon for refusing to pay that paltry US $500 fine?
Third, why are they not taking credit for brazenly misleading Guyanese that there was an allowance (flexible ceiling) of 14 billion cubic feet of gas flaring allowed, despite Vincent Adams’ insistence that it did not exist; but they were forced to admit was a cunning deception, only after Exxon distanced from them by asserting that the company never said so? Why not take credit for one more patented falsehood?
Fourth, why aren’t Guyana’s top two propaganda practitioners not taking credit for reverting the Agency back to non-transparency to the people and non-communication with the media? Why are media phone calls not returned? Why does Guyana’s Vice President hide behind a transparent veil of secrecy that fails to hide his oily nakedness?
And last, why has the President and Vice President so doggedly transformed, in such a short space, Guyana’s crucial Environmental Protection Agency into its current totally politicised state? As inquiring offshoots, why the usurping of the authority of the EPA Board and the EPA Executive Director. Why is the current on-going process for appointment of the Deputy Director being completely handled by the Office of the President with no involvement of the EPA, even though the EPA Act explicitly gives such an authority to the Executive Director? Why when the EPA Act explicitly gives such an authority to the Executive Director. Part III of the Act states:
(1) The Minister on the advice of the Board of Director shall appoint:
(a) an Executive Director, who shall be the Chief Executive Officer of the Agency; and

(2) The Executive Director shall appoint all other employees as may be necessary to discharge the functions under this Act or the regulations.

Editor, this is real governance today, and confirmation of where transparency and leadership integrity (or utter lack of both) have terminated. The EPA stands as Exhibits A to Z.

Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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