LAHORE:Tug of war between the provincial minister for environment and Environment Protection Department secretary continues as the minister on Thursday officially ‘charge sheeted’ the secretary by levelling allegations of gross violation in performing duty.
Minister for Environment Muhammad Rizwan wrote a letter to the EPC provincial secretary, the copy of which is available with the scribe, with the subject “Gross violation in performing the functions under Section 10 of the Punjab government Rules of Business, 2011.”
In his letter, the minister raised about 15 issues with the secretary and also copied the letter to the chief secretary and the principal secretary to the chief minister, Punjab. The EPD secretary while talking with the scribe said that the minister has no authority to write such a letter to him under any official rule. He said he will reply to the letter in detail in a day or two.
In his letter, the minister said that being in-charge of Environment Protection Department (EPD), he has great concerns on inordinate delays in policy matters/disposal of important cases.
Referring to a letter, No.PS/Minister-EPD/1-2/2019 dated 11.07.2019, the minister’s letter said that the EPD secretary’s office was intimated that no action has been taken so far on finalisation of rules/regulations and other allied issues of EPA Punjab. It added that after a delay of almost one year a committee was notified on March 3, 2021 vide notification No. (Tech)/EPD/1-144/2021 with TORs to delineate a list of the requisite rules and regulations, draft the identified rules, regulations and guidelines and to carry out steps for approval and notification of the rules, regulations and guidelines so drafted. “However, no fruitful efforts have been done in this regard. Although a complete technical branch of Secretariat is working direct under your control, instead of using their services, it is evident that delaying tactics were adopted. You did not attend the office regularly and kept on referring the assignment to EPA and shifting responsibility from one director of EPA to the other. Several meeting notices were given to you by this office, but found you either absent or ill-informed regarding the progress. Due to this non-serious attitude and your unavailability in office, the Punjab Green Development Programme also suffered delays,” the letter said.
The minister’s letter stated that PGDP in collaboration with World Bank would be a milestone for environmental future, lamentably, EPD has completely failed to implement the programme and the World Bank has imposed fine in this regard, and EPA negotiating team succeeded to get the fine wave off and got funds from the World Bank amounting to $25 million which was the achievement of the negotiating team of EPA. It has also been observed that, no clear strategy has been adopted to utilise the funds received under the PDGP, and still utilisation stands zero which depicts EPD’s inability. Over this point, the EPD clarified that he was the one who negotiated with the World Bank and managed to get the fine waved off. He said the project of PGDP was initiated in 2017 and the fine was imposed due to non-implementation of work plan during the tenure of the EPD minister.
The minister, in his letter, also accused the secretary of not providing information to him on a number of industrial units required to install Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations. He also accused the secretary of inefficiency in taking timely actions on his various orders.
The minister also wrote in his letter that despite different letters/reminders, no policy or practical action has been reported against the illegal generation, processing and transportation of hospital waste of the province or the violation of Hospital Waste Management Rules 2014. He also asked about non-submission of the audit report of private monitoring laboratories to his office.
“There is a strong impression that you are neglecting your obligations and duties towards the business of the department and like to keep yourself busy in personal interests. You were asked several times through meeting notices to discuss about the aforementioned issues but you did not bother to attend meetings and kept yourself away from the office which is serious misconduct,” the minister said in his letter and sought a para wise reply from the EPD secretary within a day.
The EPD Secretary while talking with the scribe said that he will submit his official reply to the minister. He said the delay in formulation of environmental policy and other regulatory matters was not because of him and were already pending when he took charge of the post while the minister was looking after this department much before. He said instead of questioning him about delays and other administrative issues, the minister should give answer to the same questions as to what he was doing all this time.
