Johnny Briceño: We need help in oil industry
Today’s oil spill in Orange Walk has reignited safety and health concerns posed by the growing petroleum industry. This morning Minister Johnny Briceño readdressed questions surrounding the lack of an Environmental Impact Assessment for the operations of Belize Natural Energy. According to Briceño, the omission was an oversight but stressed that the company is weeks away from full compliance with the law. But the Minister does admit that the resources of the Department of the Environment cannot match those of private oil companies.
Johnny Briceño, Minister of Natural Resources
“You can’t do an E.I.A. for something that’s already been done. What they have been doing now is that they have sat down and work on a compliance plan as to what is going to be expected of them, what are the backup systems that they have to put in place if there is any spill and what is going to happen etc. That is what has been done for where we have the oil, where we are already producing the oil. Now whenever they go into a new area they have to the E.I.A.”
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
“So are you confident that what they have in place is to the safety and protection of the residents nearby?”
Johnny Briceño
“To as much as we can yes, when it comes to development you are going to have some sort of negative effect on the environment. The idea here is to mitigate that to try to control it as much as possible and to put enough regulations to protect the interest of the people, government and even the environment, and that is what we have been doing with Belize Natural Energy Limited. We recognize in our department that we also need help that is why we have been getting several consultants to come in. We are speaking with the financial consultant from Trinidad, Mr. Louie, and we have asked him to give us a list of companies of accounting, auditing companies that have experience with petroleum companies to come in and do a full audit into the operations of B.N.E. Now I am in no way trying to allude any wrong doing of B.N.E. but it is just right for us to bring in our auditor or company to come in and audit the books. When they are finished with the audit, then they will tell us what we expect to collect. There are a lot of things we have to catch up on, B.N.E. has a slow of accountance, they have the resources as you point out earlier and we have to try and do our best and bring in the expertise that are not available in Belize for us to be on top of the issues as they come to us.”
