Stakeholders brainstorm on the revised Environmental Impact Assessment Act

Stakeholders and experts in the environmental industry gathered recently in Abuja at a workshop, on the subject of environmental stability and protection, as regards the revised
Environmental Impact Act (EIA), which has long been expected.

According to a cross section of the participants at the event, the need for the workshop has renewed government’s realisation that continuation of a business as usual approach by some firms operating in Nigeria is no longer an option.

The Federal Government had been implementing the EIA Act CAP E12 LFN 2010, for over two decades. In the course of the implementation of the Act, a number of gaps, omissions and inconsistencies were observed during the course of its implementation.

In order to make the EIA Act more relevant and user friendly, it has been subjected to revision and new sectoral guidelines are to be prepared.

Delivering her keynote address at the workshop, the outgoing Minister of Environment who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Nana Mede recalled the famous United Nations conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) dubbed the Earth Summit which was held in Brazil in 1992, where the world at the highest level of governance adopted Agenda 21, a blue print ofenvironmental principle, policies and actions required to be taken by all countries well into the 21st century.

She averred that; “a key supporting instrument of Agenda 21 was the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development which comprises of a set of articles by the United Nations with the goal of establishing a new and equitable global partnership through the creation of new levels of cooperation among states, key sectors of societies and people”.

Mede noted that as a demonstration of Nigeria’s commitment to the implementation of such principle, the Federal Government promptly promulgated the EIA Act No. 86 of 1992, which makes it mandatory for EIA to be fully applied to major development projects in the private and public sectors of the economy right from the planning stage.

As the apex regulator and enforcer of the EIA Act, the Federal Ministry of Environment is not unaware of the numerous institutional bottlenecks currently bedevilling the smooth implementation of Environmental Impact Assessment in Nigeria, just as Mede said that it is against such backdrop, that the ministry constituted a ministerial committee to review the EIA Act, the outcome of which is the key deliberation of the workshop.

The Revised EIA which is presently being subjected to scrutiny among other things, incorporate inputs from relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies, State and Local Government, Private Sector, NGOs, Civil Societies and other interest groups before it is passed on to the incoming National Assembly for enactment.