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Open Letter to H.E President Ali on Environmental Assessment Board

Mar 19, 2023 Letters

Dear Editor,

As one of the concerned citizens of this nation, I write to you, as Minister in charge of the Environment, to address the lack of a credible Environmental Assessment Board (EAB). I also feel compelled to submit my objections to the Environmental Protection Agency’s waiver of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Gas to Energy Project’s 300 MW Power Plant directly to the Office of the President given that a credible EAB has not been in place since the EPA issued the Public Notice of the EIA waiver on January 7, 2023 – for the record and until a credible EAB is constituted.

This submission will be made under separate cover. Despite requests for your attention to the matter of independence of the EAB, you have appointed a Board comprised entirely of government employees, two of whom have indisputable “direct” and “indirect” conflicts of interest.

This is prohibited under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA Act): Third Schedule, Environmental Assessment Board, which states plainly that: “Any member of the Board who has any interest directly or indirectly, in any matter before the Board – (a) Shall disclose the nature of his interest to the Board, and (b) shall not take part in any deliberation or decisions of the Board with respect to that matter.”

Despite public complaint, rather than disclosing their conflicts of interest and recusing themselves, the newly appointed members of the EAB have proceeded with scheduling the Public Hearing for the EPA’s waiver Gas to Energy Project’s 300 MW Power Plant on March 22, 2023. I would also like to draw your attention to their decision to obstruct public access by disallowing the use of the virtual Zoom platform for public hearings. This decision, which reverses the established good governance norm of the previous EAB, will have the effect of preventing access for communities from across the country and citizens abroad from participating in hearings, effectively silencing their voices.

As a citizen of this country who has spent a significant amount of my adult life monitoring elections as part of our struggle to build a democratic society, I must say that your Government’s actions on this matter to date brings back chilling memories of what many in our nation, including yourself and members of your Party, would recount as the A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU) attempt to capture The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) through the installation of Justice Patterson as Chairman, and subsequent efforts to rig the results of the 2020 National and Regional Elections.

Even though the scope and scale are different, your government’s actions with respect to the EAB appears to be a similar assault on a legal instrument of democracy. In this case, participatory democracy.

I am appealing to you to desist from this path not only for the obvious reasons of rule of law, democratic governance, and credibility of your own Government, but also because fair and thorough environmental assessments are crucial for safeguarding our health and natural resources and identifying and mitigating risks to development projects. It is your duty, and I hope it will be your pride, as President and Minister responsible for the Environment to see that all public institutions and bodies tasked with responsibilities under the Environmental Protection Act operate in a lawful, fair, competent, and inclusive manner.

Therefore, I implore you to void the current appointments and instead appoint an EAB free from conflicts of interests, one with adequate non-governmental representation, experts with proven track record in environmental protection and management, and gender balance.

Simone Mangal-Joly

Citizen, Environment and Democracy Advocate

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