Environmentalist calls for greater transparency

Jul 03, 2022 News

– as last EPA annual report published three years ago

Kaieteur News – The regulator body for Guyana, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last Annual Report published was for the year 2018. The annual reports include technical data such as the number of reports received by the agency for the various sectors such as construction, oil and gas or mining operations, among others.

Executive Director of the EPA, Kemraj Pasram

This key document also helps analysts understand the growth and outcomes of these activities, through data provided on compliance and other areas. However, the EPA has not published this report for three consecutive years.

Highlighting this issue was environmentalist, Simone Mangal-Joly in a letter to the Environmental Assessment Board (EAB) dated June 30, last.

In her missive to the Chairperson of the EAB, Pradeepa Bholanauth, the environmentalist reasoned, “At present, the EAB’s reporting structure is shrouded in secret. It is not clear to whom the EAB reports its activities and from whom it takes instructions.

The last time that the EPA prepared an Annual Report that was transparently available to the public was 2018…”
In addition to the document not being published on the EPA’s website, Mangal-Joly pointed to the fact that the last Annual Report links the EAB to the Executive Director in the EPA, Mr. Kemraj Parsram. As such, she questioned the transparency of the Board in carrying out its functions.

“How could the EAB act impartially in weighing the decisions of the EPA when it is subsumed under the operations of the EPA? How could the EAB be independent when all its members are government employees whose very livelihoods are vulnerable if they do not take decisions that please their seniors? What has prevented the Government of Guyana from appointing a balanced EAB that includes qualified civil society representation, academic, and private sector specialists?”
The EAB is mandated by the Environmental Protection Act to conduct public hearings into all appeals made and is also tasked with recommending whether an Environmental Impact Assessment must be accepted, amended or rejected; whether a permit should be issued by the Agency as well as what terms and conditions should be included in an environmental permit.

Efforts to ascertain whether the reports were completed but not published on the EPA’s website were futile as calls to the Executive Director went unanswered. Messages to his cell were not acknowledged.

In its 2018 report, the EPA notes that it processed 842 permits, a 70 percent increase over that issued in 2017. Additionally, permits granted for short-term noise emissions in 2018 increased by 61 percent over those issued in 2017 and 81 percent over those issued in 2016. In 2018, an internal audit was also conducted which unearthed approximately 879 expired permits.

When it comes to environmental authorisation, the EPA explained that a total of 926 applications were received, a 55.8 percent and 66 percent increase in applications received compared to 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Further, the total of 842 permits were granted in 2018, an increase of 70 percent over that issued in 2017 and 205 percent over that issued in 2016, the agency says in its 2018 Annual Report.

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