inety Days to Perdition



The government's headlong pursuit of the Great Development Myth is going to land all of us in serious trouble before we are much older.



Tourism is seen as the magic bullet for "Development" and this means destroying the environment of Jamaica and taking away public rights in order to build cruise ship piers and exclusive resorts for foreigners.



The energy crisis, global warming and the coming worldwide depression will soon put paid to all the dreams of cruise ship heaven and artificial attractions.. Our frenzied pursuit of tourist-factory-farming will bequeath to us expensive white elephants in the shape of hotels on beaches ravaged by super hurricanes, cruise ship piers without cruise ships and a population having to pay for expensive 'developments' which are unable to pay for themselves.



The government, in an effort to cut through red tape and speed up 'development' is proposing to institute a mandatory 90-day turnaround time for approval of new projects by NEPA.



This will not even allow time for an effective Environmental Imlact Assessment. It seems that developers are constitutionally unable to give adequate notice of their projects although most of these projects have been months and years in conception. They wait till the last minute and blackmail civil servants by claiming massive loss of profit if permission is not granted immediately.

The Jamaica Environmental Action Network (JEAN) – of which I am proud to be a member – has taken objection to this proposal on the ground that the new rules will open the development process to anarchy.



JEAN is concerned by two things: one is the inability of the NEPA to make up its mind and to make effective rules for developers and the other is the fact that when NEPA does make rules it takes no action when these rules are defied, ignored, or broken.



One example, supplied by JEAN will explain the point;

"… the environmental permit granted by NEPA to Hoteles Pinero Jamaica Ltd. (HOJAPI) to build the Gran Bahia Principe Hotel requires that :- (a) the sewage treatment plant (STP) be built in accordance with submitted designs; (b) the Ministry of Health be advised before commencement of construction of the STP, at 50% completion, at 90% completion and on commissioning; and (c) that the effluent from the plant must confirm to NEPA standards. What in fact happened? The sewage plant was not built according to the specifications, we are unaware whether or not the Ministry of Health has ever issued an approval letter for the "as built" plant, only one notification was done at 50% construction, and following tests … the effluent was not in conformance with standards. None of the three government agencies that could apply sanctions to the hotel – NEPA, the Ministry of Health and/or the Water Resources Authority – has done so."



If NEPA wants to 'speed up the process of development approval" the simplest option is simply to do nothing. That is, simply follow their Standard Operating Procedure.