Paramountcy of the law

Jun 25, 2023 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The laws of Guyana take precedence over the ambitions of foreign oil companies, the discretions of local politicians.  We fully agree with Guyanese attorney-at-law, Ms. Melinda Janki, whose recent words rang authoritatively: “… if you don’t like national laws, then don’t come to Guyana, but once you are here, you have to obey those laws.”

Since the discovery of oil, the laws of Guyana have been trifled with, trampled upon, made a mockery of, through risks taken, and lip service offered by the Guyana Government, foreign oil companies, and others that come here to provide support services.  Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been the poster child of lax enforcement, and of coming up with spurious rationales to justify its failure to apply the law to the fullest.  This is what must be, come what may, and regardless of which superpower entity is on the receiving end of its decisions. Laws and derivative rules and regulations must be implemented and enforced, without exception.

If not, the laws on the books, such as the Environmental Protection Act are reduced to a presence on a shelf.  The laws that are there to protect the environment and people suffer from a failure of will in the hands of those who are responsible for making them come alive and apply across the board.  Guyana’s EPA has been extremely generous to oil companies operating here.  Requirements are routinely waived; permits granted like Christmas gifts, and with each such development, the risks and exposures to Guyanese multiply.  This has been the situation with Environmental Impact Assessments, which everyone thinks are compulsory in certain circumstances, but not this country’s EPA.  The foreign companies, the ones focusing exclusively on oil exploration and production, and other ones present in Guyana to provide downstream services, have been given green light and blank check to operate as they please.  A company with a facility in Houston has been taken to court more than once, and still the local EPA hems and haws, and dances around laying down the law to the errant company.

It is reasonable to expect that a responsible government would look at what is approved by the EPA, the possible gaps in what was presented to the EPA by the foreign companies, the reaction of concerned citizens, the risks to Guyana, and as a commonsense measure intervene and put the brakes on the EPA to get to the bottom of why things are the way they are.  This is what ethical political leaders would do in the face of repeated outcries over some of the inexplicable decisions of the EPA.  What Guyanese have had to live with, is where the government and its leaders are unfazed, where no alarms have sounded, relative to poorness of the work coming out of the EPA, and how impotent it looks.

The reality, however, is that Guyana’s EPA, as it stands today, is a political creature that sees its mandate as more to obey the reckless visions and the dangerous games of politicians in the PPPC Government, than to get foreign companies to obey the laws of this country.  Since it is clear by now that the EPA will not act cleanly, nor the government caring about pushing it to vigorously apply the law, then it has been left to citizens to carry the fight forward.  Melinda Janki put it neatly: “if you don’t think that Guyanese should have a say in what happens in this country then you’re in the wrong place.”  Guyanese are not sitting down, taking whatever speciousness comes out of the mouths of leaders, or complacent with letting the EPA operate as it pleases.

The laws are there and both the government and EPA have failed.  The laws must be obeyed, and if the EPA is not up to the task, then the PPPC Government must see that it delivers.  If both lapse, then the onus is on citizens to head to court and fight for compliance.  Obedience to the laws of Guyana is a cost of doing business: risks must be managed, regardless of expense; regulations followed notwithstanding financial demands.  Be prepared to obey laws, or don’t come here.  To those here: obey the laws, or get out.

• discretions, Editorial, Guyana’s, Paramountcy, politicians