Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Speed up process to grant EPA authority status!

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reiterated its move to attain authority status, explaining that there is a bill to that effect which is at the consideration stages in Parliament.

The Ghanaian Times thinks such a move, disclosed first by the then Executive Director of EPA, Dr. Henry Kwabena Kokofu, during a UK-Ghana Chamber of Commerce's (UKGCC) webinar on February 29, 2024, is in order because it will give the agency autonomy to discharge functions more effectively.

Authority status attracts people and provides exemptions or privileges which regular agencies do not have.

This is obviously one major reason why the EPA wants to be transformed into an authority, as, according to it, that status will strengthen its regulatory functions and prosecutorial powers to bite harder.

For instance, according to Dr. Kokofu’s submission, the EPA can have the power of arrest.

It is also agreed that, all things being equal, public-sector organizations deliver better quality and improve efficiency once their managers are given more autonomy in managerial and operational decisions.

The foregoing then supports the EPA’s quest to gain authority status, so it can assume that strong leadership can help it have the drive for environmental protection by adopting regulations that can ensure the results its new status is supposed to bring.

There are so many environmental issues that the EPA must be able to address, and its crave for authority status means it is handicapped in handling some of them.

The EPA is the country's leading public entity mandated to protect, co-manage, and improve its environment, backed by the Environmental Protection Agency Act of 1994 (Act 490) with the Environmental Assessment Regulations of 1999 (L.I. 1652) as its enabling legislation.

Its mandate covers both built and natural environments, which encompass the physical and terrestrial, aquatic, and atmo­spheric ecosystems.

It undertakes a number of activities in the exercise of its mandate, including conducting environmental impact assessments to evaluate the potential environmental impact of proposed development projects.

Besides, it conducts environmental monitoring of industrial and commercial activities to ensure compliance with environmental laws and regulations and issues environmental permits to regulate various projects across different sectors, including energy, mining, agriculture, and manufacturing.

That is to say, businesses whose activities have a potential impact on the environment must register with the EPA, and these include mining, manufacturing concerns, construction, those doing logging, and commercial farming.

To ensure compliance with environmental regulations, the EPA utilises strategies, including embarking on regular compliance and enforcement exercises and monitoring permit schedules.

The EPA is an agency under the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, so it may happen that the Ministry controls it according to its regular status, which does not give it the leeway to operate as freely as it should, hence the craving for some autonomy.

It can be recalled that while speaking during the UKGCC webinar already referred to, Dr. Kokofu remarked that “within a month or so, Parliament will approve [the bill for authority status], and the President will assent to it.”

The Ghanaian Times hopes there will be no further delays in the process meant to grant the EPA the authority status it craves so much.