ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Environment Protection Agency’s (Pak-EPA) environmental, regulatory and monitoring functions have been put on hold after the position for head of the agency became vacant more than a month ago.

The regulatory body has been unable to take legal action against hospitals, clinics and pathology laboratories for the poor disposal of hazardous waste, and the steel mills for polluting the air of the twin cities.

“Half a dozen environment protection orders (EPO) are pending against private housing societies for the irreversible environmental degradation of their natural surroundings,” a senior official from the agency said.

The position of head of the agency has been vacant since July 13 after the acting director general (DG) moved abroad. Since his departure, the Ministry of Climate Change has not been able to assign a qualified official to fill the position. Agency officials have attributed this failure to ‘internal politics’.

Among the other tasks on hold, there is no one to remind the concerned departments to submit environment impact assessment (EIA) reports on the construction of the road from Golra to the new Islamabad International Airport. Like many projects executed in the past, the road may be in violation of the Environment Protector Act 1997.

Officially, developers must provide EIAs before initiating large development projects in order to assess the environmental damage that comes with the movement of heavy machinery or the cutting of trees.

One of the most damaging ongoing projects to take place in the absence of a Pak-EPA DG is the widening of the Islamabad Highway. The Capital Development Authority (CDA) began the project even though work is in violation of the Environment Protection Act.

Former DG Dr Muhammad Khurshid said that his office had been reminding the CDA to submit an EIA report since March 2015. The agency previously threw out a draft EIA for the project, prepared by private consultants, which Khurshid described as ‘poor’ and ‘unprofessional’.

The consultancy firm was engaged by the CDA to prepare the report after the project began.

“The EPA would have served the authority with an Environment Protection Order (EPO) in July for continuously violating environmental laws. Unfortunately, the DG left and all our actions have been pending since. At the moment the agency is unaware of the design and plans for the expansion of the highway. It is also unclear how many trees have been cut to build the I-8 interchange, as are the remedial measures taken by the developers to make up for the environmental losses,” a Pak-EPA official said.

Last week, Ministry of Climate Change Secretary, Arif Ahmed Khan, criticized the lack of manpower and finances available to the Pak-EPA to the Senate Committee on Climate Change.

“I will bring the issue to the Prime Minister’s attention in order to strengthen this department and save Islamabad’s green character,” he said.

Khan said that the Ministry is in the process of finding a head for the agency.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2015

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