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Claudette Thompson, acting Director of Public Prosecution
The saga of the confidential deal between the Natural Environment & Planning Agency [NEPA] and Trade Winds Citrus Limited over the pollution of the Rio Cobre has deepened with the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions disclosing that it was blindsided by the secret arrangement.
The deal was struck without the knowledge of the court or the ministry.
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.
Claudette Thompson, acting Director of Public Prosecution, speaking Friday on Beyond the Headlines, said NEPA had reached out to her office last month seeking guidance on how to proceed.
But she said, before guidance could have been provided, she heard through the media that the matter was disposed of in court.
She said her office will reconsider how it treats legal cases involving NEPA.
The acting DPP said her office still has an interest in pursuing the criminal matter to find out exactly what transpired.
Accordingly, she said her office had written to NEPA again on Friday, asking for the relevant material, stressing that "the prosecution has a right of appeal," and therefore it was important to determine whether this is one such case.
"I don't even know even know how they arrived at the position that they arrived at," she said in reference to the NDA, noting that she had only "heard through the media," that the parties had "arrived at a secret deal."
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