The acting Prime Minister and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum while speaking on the Review of the Performance Audit on the Management of Environment Impact Assessment in Parliament last Thursday thanked the staff at the Ministry of Environment.
He acknowledged that things could improve but also thanked the Director of Environment Sandeep Kaur Singh and permanent secretary Joshua Wycliffe for the very hard and in fact microscopic look that they have upon them.
“We need to ensure that we continue to resource them, get more people in there and make sure that we constantly reviewing our laws to make sure that it proper environmental compliance,” he said.
Speaking about development projects and processes that are involved, he said it was not an easy task when there were legacy issues to be addressed, when they had to address current environmental issues and current development issues.
“There are a lot of things to juggle including, Mr. Speaker, Sir, the public demand, including things like pollution, including environmental degradation, we have to see what is going to happen in 10 to 20 years’ time, the opportunity for jobs, then there is, of course, a lot of the developers who are corrupt.
“Of course they are corrupt, not all of them, some of them are very good, some of them are extremely good.”
“The new company that has bought 44 per cent of Energy Fiji Ltd (EFL), the first thing they did was a due diligence on the environment because you know Japanese companies are very much sticklers for environmental compliance.
“In fact I appreciate the work that is being done by the Ministry of Environment.
“I would like to also thank this young group of people and we get the Opposition slandering them all the time, non-stop. It is very difficult.
“Slandering them all the time, standing up here and saying nothing was done because some New Zealand media wrote the article, not knowing that those people actually had to go and put a stop to that.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said when the Department of Environment gave a plan, one had to do the consultation and stick to the plan.
“Their job is to make sure you stick to what they have laid out. If they do not then they stop it. Stick within the parameters, you step out and they will stop you.
“Unless you can show how you can redress that situation or that breach, they will not let you start.
“That is how the system works, honourable Professor Prasad.” The Acting Prime Minister also spoke about the EIA issues raised in the media during his tour of the Northern Division.
