Saturday September 8, 2007
LUMUT: Come Oct 1, only consultants registered with the Department of Environment (DOE) will be allowed to prepare Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports.
Perak DOE director Abu Hasan Mohd Isa said this was because many of the previous reports were shoddy and not up to mark.
"Before this, any Tom, Dick and Harry were allowed to prepare the EIAs," he said after the launch of a two-day seminar on the improvement of EIAs here on Saturday.
"That is why the reports have not been up to standard. On a scale of one to five, I would rate the quality of previous EIAs at three," he added.
Abu Hasan said that on some occasions, the department would discover that consultants had merely "cut and pasted" old data from previous reports to prepare a new one.
"As such, we have to ask them to redo it or to get more information where it is lacking."
With the new ruling, only consultants with good experience, knowledge and expertise in the field were allowed to register, he said.
He added that the department would blacklist errant consultants if found that unethical methods had been used to file the reports or certain information had been omitted to expedite the approval of projects.
"We will not hesitate to do this. Once the consultant is blacklisted, he or she will be barred from preparing other reports," he said.
Abu Hasan said the EIA should not be used as a license to approve a project but instead used to help the authorities make sound decisions.
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