No C.E.O. for Sustainable Development Equals No NEAC Chairperson

Nadia Bood

The public consultation held on Thursday night proceeded as scheduled, despite a Chief Executive Officer for Sustainable Development not having been appointed.  According to the Coalition, the C.E.O.  is also the chair of the National Environmental Appraisal Committee, NEAC, which is an integral part of the approval process.  While Bood applauds the new government for introducing a portfolio that includes the blue economy, she says that its primary mandate is sustainable development.

Nadia Bood, World Wildlife Fund

“This project was put forward some months ago and it was shut down by the previous cabinet and I think given the fact that the new government is trying to work in the right direction in creation of, for example, the new blue economy ministry.  I think that is something very good, but we believe that having a project that is proposing to dump dredging material at sea is contrary to the idea of what a blue economy is all about.  A blue economy speaks to the need for sustainable management of our marine and coastal resources.  So it tries to promote actions and activities that are in line with maintaining a healthy ecosystem that we can continue to benefit from for food or for livelihoods for the national economy.  So this project is not in line with that and so even during the consultations yesterday, the new CEO spoke briefly about the project and she expressed the fact that she’s just getting aware of this project.  So this has been brought to life and there was a quick consultation organized and executed and the blue economy ministry needs to be made aware and chime in on this as well because it will impact whatever the government has planned in mind.  The other thing that we have a concern with is that we were recently made aware of the list of CEOs for the different ministries and if you notice on that list there is no CEO yet assigned for sustainable development within which the Department of the Environment falls.  And so our knowledge is that for NEAC which operates development projects.  The proposed chair for NEAC is the CEO of the ministry and to have this project being pushed through without that person in their position to give the necessary input, we think that that’s a gap and that needs to be addressed.”