In sending the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr Vincent Adams on immediate leave of 126 days without explanation, the one-month-old PPP/C administration has effectively decapitated the Agency while it is in the midst of making major decisions on various aspects of the oil and gas industry and in other sectors.
Plotting the thinking behind the removal of Dr Adams is unfathomable except for it being a rush of madness in a particularly reckless capitulation to triumphalism or more cynically, a sign that the PPP/C government has made a deal with some investor which it was fully aware that the Executive Director would not sign on to.
Whatever the motivation, the PPP/C government now has to do two things: explain the rationale for what would be seen as the unjustified dismissal of Dr Adams and which would send an unmistakable signal that professionals are still an at-risk species. The government must also point the way forward for the EPA. Was there some exceptionable conduct that required Dr Adams being separated from office at this crucial juncture? Or is there a fastidious take-your-outstanding-leave unit in the Office of the President and all such persons will now be sent off no matter how pressing their current workloads? Under the EPA Act of 1996, the Executive Director of the Agency is the Chief Executive Officer and he is responsible for the appointment of all other officers. It is unlikely that the government can easily and quickly recruit someone with Dr Adams’ qualifications.
Dr Adams holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering, MSc Degrees in Groundwater Hydrology and Geological Engineering/Petroleum Engineering, and a BSc in Civil Engineering and was once employed with global oil major British Petroleum. He has also had decades of experience working in various high-level positions. There is no one else at the agency with the skills and experience that Dr Adams brought to the job. It would therefore seem that his removal would halt or at least substantially delay a final decision on the Field Development Plan (FDP) for ExxonMobil’s third proposed oil well development – Payara since there are major outstanding disagreements on flaring and the handling of reservoir water in ExxonMobil’s offshore operations.
Dr Adams was instructed to immediately hand over to Ms Sharifa Razack, the Permit Review and Authorisation Manager who reports to the Director of Corporate Services. She could hardly be expected to take any of the decisions that would be in the remit of the Executive Director. So why, again, would the government unthinkingly seek to remove Dr Adams during a fully engaged process to review the FDP which has also seen the retaining of a team financed by Canada and including the former Premier of Alberta, Alison Redford QC?
While it has been known that Dr Adams has been a senior member of the Alliance for Change – a partner in the former governing coalition – there had not been the slightest imputation that any of the decisions he had taken since his recruitment in 2018 were anything but professional. Some of these decisions would have undoubtedly elicited objections from the private sector to the APNU+AFC government but Dr Adams remained unmoved and there was no sign that the previous administration had applied pressure on him. Is it the case that this new government is more accommodating of pressure from the private sector to lessen the oversight of the EPA?
Even if there had been concern about Dr Adams’ affiliation with the AFC, surely that would have been subsumed by the recognition that he was discharging important professional obligations. Indeed, the PPP/C’s retention of former APNU+AFC Foreign Minister Mr Carl Greenidge in various capacities and the offering of board positions and advisory roles to the newer parties which contested the March 2nd general elections are testimony to a different type of dispensation.
It is all the more reason why the abrupt removal of Dr Adams is sinister and undermines the goodwill and support that this new government has entered office with. It behoves President Ali to make a clear and convincing statement on this matter.
