Daily Independent Online.
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Monday,July 19, 2004.
Don
tackles town planners over EIA report
By Dada Jackson
Senior Property and Environment Correspondent,
Lagos
A renowned environmentalist and university don,
Professor Oladele Osibanjo, has taken a swipe at town planners, who are in the
habit of writing Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA)report, arguing that such
practice was against international norms and convention.
Osibanjo, of the University of Ibadan, in an exclusive
interview with Daily Independent at a seminar held at the Lagos State Environmental
Protection Agency (LASEPA) headquarters, Alausa, said that EIA, which is a
comprehensive report, should not be left in the hands of just one professional
body to handle, adding that the report involves a lot of things which suggest
that it must be handled by many professional bodies.
According to him, EIA is a proactive management tool
for doing a project before it starts, therefore, all disciplines are expected
to be involved in writing it.
He said that with this, no professional body should
arrogate to itself the monopoly of solely writing the EIA report.
The professor, who is also an environmental
consultant, further said that EIA does not start and end with just writing
about not building on canals and drainages but it also involves knowing the
texture of the soil, landscape, feelings of the people, concerning their
response to the project and some other extraneous considerations, adding that
the writing of an EIA report was all encompassing and therefore, should be
broad-based. Osibanjo said that his position does not mean that he was
antagonistic of the town planners but he was only expressing his views on what
the law says about the writing of an EIA report.
The professor further said that the EIA decree called
for a comprehensive report, adding that the idea of town planners solely
writing the report should be discontinued in order for us not to be seen by the
international community as not doing the right thing.
Osibanjo, who was at the meeting organised by
LASEPA to rub minds with its
accredited consultants, commended the general manager of the agency, Mr.
Ademola Adesina for his vision to
chart a new course for the agency, adding that the LASEPA boss has done well for reversing his earlier
decision to pay his accredited consultants for jobs done for their clients.
According to the environmentalist, the agency should
allow its consultants to source for their own clientele while at the same time,
negotiate their fees. By so doing, he explained, the whole system would be
devoided of any unnecessary bottleneck.
He
also, commended the decision of LASEPA to introduce administrative charges for
new and existing facilities and noted that this is what obtains all over the
world.
