On Sunday we reported on an open letter sent to President Irfaan Ali by Environment and Democracy activist Simone Mangal-Joly, where she criticized the recent appointees to the Environmental Assessment Board. Not only, did she tell him, had he failed to address the matter of conflicts of interest in relation to the EAB, but he had “doubled down” and had now appointed two members of the three-member board who fell precisely into that category. Furthermore, in a retrograde step the board now had no members with expertise in environmental protection in addition to which it continued to lack non-governmental representation. This was despite the fact that Guyana had “capable professional expertise in academia and elsewhere.”
The previous members of the board were Ms Pradeepa Bholanath who is the Senior Director for Climate and REDD+ in the Ministry of Natural Resources; Mr Joslyn McKenzie, the Permanent Secretary in the same ministry; and Dr Garvin Cummings, the Chief Hydrometerological Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture, all of them, it might be noted, government officials. The only change to the new complement is that of the former chair, Ms Bholanath, who has now been replaced by Dr Mahender Sharma, Head of the Guyana Energy Agency – hence Ms Mangal-Joly’s reference to ‘doubling down’.
She pointed out that since the advent of oil production most of the matters brought before the EAB were connected to projects “directly related to areas within Dr Sharma’s and McKenzie’s remit.” Dr Sharma, the new head of the board was charged, she said, “with overseeing the development of all types of energy projects in Guyana, including fossil fuel-based projects.” She also adverted to the fact that he was a director of GPL and had previously been its chairman.
As for Mr McKenzie, as the most senior public servant in the Ministry of Natural Resources he oversaw a ministry which had primary responsibility for promoting petroleum development and the US$2 billion Gas-to-Energy project. The letter said that the problem of conflict of interest was already evident in relation to the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to waive an Environmental Impact Assessment for the Natural Gas Power Plant project, which is part of the Gas-to-Energy project.
Ms Mangal-Joly made reference to the fact that the applicant for the project, Guyana Power and Gas Inc, had made its application in conjunction with GPL, which provided the project summary, in addition to which it would be handling the consultancy for an important aspect of it. Guyana Power and Gas would be the largest supplier of energy to GPL which would have to co-develop the infrastructure required for feeding energy from the power plant into the grid. And if that were not enough, the environmentalist alluded to the fact that Dr Sharma’s wife, Ms Marcia Nadir-Sharma, was a director of Guyana Power and Gas.
Following the granting of the waiver for the Power Plant project by the Environmental Protection Agency, the EAB will hold a public hearing on objections to this on March 22. Ms Mangal-Joly then asked rhetorically how there could be a fair hearing when two members of the board were in “compromised situations”; it was not as if, she argued, they could recuse themselves because if they did so that would leave only Dr Cummings, who was also a government employee as the sole adjudicator.
These appointments to a critical environmental board which is supposed to serve as the ultimate protection to the public in relation to their environment are nothing short of scandalous. At least, this is how it would be seen in any jurisdiction where accountability, transparency and the rule of law held sway. But not here. One assumes that the President’s advisors have read the Environmental Protection Act which requires that members should be unencumbered by conflicts of loyalty and duties. But it seems what the law actually says is not of great consequence to those who sit in government, more especially considering that they seem to get away with disregarding it. Unfortunately for the country it suffers from the arrogance of believing it is always right.
It is not as if there were not major problems with the EAB before the latest appointments; far from it. Ms Mangal-Joly had refused to attend an EAB meeting last year on her objections to the waiver of an Environmental Impact Assessment for ExxonMobil’s drilling applications in the Kaieteur and Canje blocks. This was owing to the unfair handling of complaints by previous Environmental Assessment Boards. “Until the EAB can operate as a truly independent body as foreseen under the Environmental Protection Act, hearings like these will amount to an abuse of the public’s time …” she had written at the time. She cited the EAB’s handling of the Demerara Bridge waiver appeal as one example of their failure to meet best practice standards in terms of timeliness and impartiality, and described how the board had allowed the Environmental Protection Agency inordinate amounts of time to develop reasons for decisions in defiance of the law.
But the latest appointments to the EAB are a clear statement by the government yet again that they are indifferent to the rule of law when it is in conflict with their interest, and that impartiality is the last thing they seek in state agencies, even where that is required by statute or convention. It is another example of their obsession with absolute control and their need to neutralize all countervailing forces. They want to steam ahead with whatever they have in mind for ‘development’ and they do not intend to allow any independent elements, no matter how rational their arguments, to stand in their way.
The government position on the environment has been obvious from the time they fired Dr Vincent Adams as head of the Environmental Protection Agency on political grounds. They sought to emasculate that organization, which they have certainly succeeded in doing, because they wanted it to endorse what they decided in the oil and gas sector particularly, not ask questions about their determinations. They have conflated their own interest with that of the public, assuming that their own narrow vision is what is good for citizens, no matter what the latter think or want. Whatever democracy means to them, it stops short at free and fair national elections. In addition they are apparently unfazed by their own history of project disasters, the Skeldon sugar factory not being the least of them.
Ms Mangal-Joly has commented that a “Lack of trust in fairness of the EAB’s decisions can feed conflicts and lead to lack of stability and predictability in the country’s environmental management system. This can not only adversely affect public interest but also investor interest, as companies can be exposed to legal and stakeholder risks.” While this may be true, it is unfortunately the case that the major oil and gas firms have evinced no concern about the country’s environmental management system, and nor are they likely to do so in the near future. If they break the law in developed societies, which they do, they are hardly going to be bothered about doing so in a country like this.
In the end, the onus for maintaining an environmental framework which operates in the interest of the nation and its citizens lies with the government of the day, and if that government is not doing its duty, then it is for people like Ms Mangal-Joly to speak out – as many as possible, it should be added. Single voices will be ignored. It would help if the comatose opposition were better organized and had speakers who could regularly and systematically add their input to the issue. They have an excellent opportunity now in relation to the appointments to the EAB.
Protecting the environment relates to everybody’s future, not just what the government thinks is everybody’s future.