Environmentalists call for shake up at NEPA

There is a call on Friday morning for a management shake up at the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), which has been placed under the microscope following the damning results of a performance audit.

The study, which was conducted by the Auditor-General, found that taxpayers have not received much value for the $3.6 billion that has been provided to NEPA over the years.

In addition, it said the agency requires more effective management of its operations.

Chief Executive Officer of the Jamaica Environment Trust, Diana McCaulay, believes NEPA's senior management should be held accountable for the lack of performance.

Speaking yesterday on RJR94fm’s Beyond the Headlines, Mrs. McCaulay said tough decisions will have to be made for the state agency to move on.

“So yes there might have to be a shake up. There are people who have just simply not been doing their jobs and there should be some consequences for that. How can we, in one breath, say that we have no money to do anything like build schools, clinics or help teachers or policemen, but we are funding this agency and we are getting very little for it. Some very hard decisions need to be taken,” Ms. McCaulay said.    

And environmentalist Peter Espuet says the lack of a proper system for the monitoring of NEPA's operations is the main reason for the under performance of the regulatory agency.

He pointed to deficiencies in the composition of the Board which oversees the entity's activities.

Among other things, Mr. Espuet is recommending that more technical persons be appointed to the Board.

Another proposal is the establishment of an independent appeals tribunal to handle applications for development projects.

“What I don't understand is when the board of the authority has turned down something and then an appeal goes to the Minister, who is not a technical person, who doesn’t know much about the environment usually and then the minister overturns the recommendation of the board of technical people. I think we also need to have an independent appeals tribunal…I think that if we do those two things we will see a lot of progress,” Mr. Espuet said.