‘Nema has gained public trust over the years’

By Kevin Oguoko

Nema Director General Geoffrey Wahungu shades light on the institution:

1. What are the roles of National Environment Management Authority (Nema)?

Nema is the principal agent of the Kenyan government dealing with issues related to environment. We undertake a supervisory role in coordinating environmental management activities being undertaken by the lead agencies as provided for under the Environmental Management and Co-ordination Act 1999.

2. Does that mean Nema is the head in the hierarchy of lead agencies, say Kenya Wildlife Service and other environment-involved bodies?

By design, the Environmental Act — EMCA — provides for support from partners concerned with particular environmental issues. Supposing one lodges a complaint with Nema on a particular environment concern, Nema forwards the complaint to the lead agency involved and advises them to take action.

3. There have been concerns that some complaints are not dealt with on time. How do you channel complaints?

Nema has various avenues through which complaints can be lodged. One can make it here in the headquarters through our corporate communication team or through our mailbox, official email, Twitter and other social media forums.

We then consolidate the complaints at the end of day and classify them as low risk, medium risk or high risk. We deal with high-risk issues within 24 hours, medium 48 hours and low risk within two weeks. We notify and acknowledge receipt of the complaints and forward complaints to the lead agencies to handle it from there. We also have a strong legal department for persons who violate Environmental Impact Assessment licence agreements.

4. How effective is Nema’s legal department; how many cases have been successfully filed in courts and won within the last one year?

Nema currently has 90 cases in court that are both criminal and civil. Criminal cases touch on persons who do not adhere to environmental regulations.

Some of the cases in court are on construction without environmental impact assessments, encroachment on riparian areas, illegal discharge of effluent into the environment, noise and judicial review, which are basically cases that seek to quash decisions that have been made by Nema, especially on persons who have been prosecuted for violation of environmental matters.

5. The 0.1 per cent of the value of a project paid by all developers for an Environmental Impact Assessment before construction has come under a lot of criticism, especially from developers with multi-billion-shilling projects for being too much. What’s your take on this?

The payment is for the lifetime of the project. Undertaking an Environmental Impact Assessment takes manpower and involves various agencies. In the case of an oil and gas corporation, we would have to involve opinion lead agencies and technical advisory experts. In the case of housing projects, we would also have to involve the community to get public involvement on the scope of a project. All these, plus regular site visits to check that requirements are being met, makes environmental assessments costly.

6. Given a hypothetical example of a luxurious beach plot project on four-acre piece of land that would cost around Sh4 billion on completion and another random mineral project that would cost around the same amount but would occupy and affect a larger piece of land, say 50 acres. Wouldn’t it be prudent for the projects to be categorised into types of activities and charged different fees as opposed to a flat rate?

Well, the size of the project is not necessarily a sure way of checking on the environment impact of a project. Smaller luxurious projects tend to draw a lot from the environment with a number of impacts, which might not necessarily be visible to the naked eye.

7. There have been complaints among residents who feel Nema officials have been compromised in dealings with owners of the properties in the wrong as their complaints take long to be addressed. What is Nema’s position on these allegations?

These perceptions have to do with people’s anxious expectations and misconception on the role of Nema. When one experiences a problem, say a sewer leak, they lodge their complaint with Nema and we indeed visit the site to verify the claims.

The problem comes when we have to forward the complaint to county governments who have the mandate to address the complaint. The delay in addressing the problem is later attributed to Nema. There have also been unscrupulous people who forge our identification cards and letters so as to take bribes and supposedly collect money on our behalf.

8. So there is no corruption at Nema?

We would like to urge anyone with any information or evidence on any suspected corruption case to report to Nema, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) or the Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ) for necessary action.

9. What would you say Nema has achieved over the years?

Nema has developed and contributed to the development of environmental impact assessment standards. We have also managed to mitigate problems of environmental nature and improve water quality in conjunction with lead agencies. We have gained public trust over the years that inform us of happenings all over the country of environmental impact nature.

10There is a lot of back-and-forth from one government agency to another when it comes to developing a piece of land. Have you thought about forming an inter-governmental department that would be a one-stop-shop for handling all regulatory and procedural requirements?

KenInvest, a government agency, has all the listed regulations and procedural requirements for any type of investment in Kenya.

—  koguoko@standardmedia.co.ke