NEPA faces more criticism for confidential deal with Trade Winds Citrus

   

Pressure is mounting for the National Environment and Planning Agency to provide details on how it entered into a confidential deal with Trade Winds Citrus Limited during a criminal prosecution against the company.

 

The deal was struck without the knowledge of the court.

 

NEPA had taken the company to court for an oil spill in the Rio Cobre in St. Catherine in December 2023.

 

But it was announced in the St. Catherine Parish Court on Wednesday that NEPA intended to withdraw the charges.

 

An attorney for the agency informed the presiding judge that the regulator, the Natural Resources Conservation Authority, had reached a settlement with the company.

 

But when Judge Yvette Wentworth-Miller requested the agreement for the court's scrutiny, the lawyer told her that it was confidential.

 

Kestonard Gordon, Vice Chairman of the St. Catherine Parish Development Committee and President of Friends of the Rio Cobre, said the issue will fuel public distrust of NEPA. 

 

"We are concerned about the existence of a settlement that we don't know about; we are concerned about the fact that the community has not been a beneficiary of any compensation; and we are also concerned about the fact that the attorney that represents Trade Winds Citrus is the same attorney that represents Windalco. And we are afraid that if you cut a deal with Trade Winds Citrus, then we are in great problems in relation to Windalco. And I pointed out that to the CEO of NEPA and I am surprised at what has happened," he bemoaned. 

 

Mr. Gordon was speaking Thursday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines.