It is my good fortune to belong to an organisation so maligned, least understood, hated and contradicted. Truly indeed it is admired by those who know the management and protection character of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under risks, blackmail, threats of deaths, limited human and financial resources; but it is shunned by polluters and ridiculed by those who lack the understanding of the legal mandate of the Agency.

A parallel of the attitude of the Ghanaian to the Agency is found in its attitude towards the environment. The environment is being harmed, plundered, dismembered, destroyed and treated with scorn and callousness. It is a shame to see how sheer numbers of human beings are causing severe damage to the country’s environment.

We do not have a sense of a shared and collective responsibility a moral obligation towards it. There is therefore a parallel between the two questions: why are the Municipal, Metropolitan and District Assemblies (MMDAs) not considered ‘useless” held responsible for negligence of duty; and why the EPA is maligned and considered useless and ineffective?

The Blame Game

Ever since the establishment of the EPC/EPA forty years ago discussions concerning whose task it is to solve environmental problems have been frequent in the media landscape. With the blame game focusing mainly on “EPA what are you doing about the big hole in the middle of the road at Adabraka?” “EPA is forty years old and there is rubbish all over the place. What are you doing?” “EPA the death of the whales is your fault”. EPA there is a green substance along the Labadi beach what do you say about that?” “EPA what are you doing about galamsey?”  “EPA should be shut down; I don’t even know what they do.”EPA, EPA on and on and on.

And the latest of such vituperations has come from no mean a person than the Ashanti Regional Minister Samuel Sarpong who as reported on Myjoyonline did castigate the region's Minerals commission and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to curb the widespread menace of illegal mining.

A further online search of the news story mentioned “People are mining few meters to water bodies and since they [EPA and Minerals Commission] are not making sure that the right thing is done, I will label them as useless so far as that institution is concerned,” he reiterated.

What triggered it?

“We talk of EPA and the Minerals Commission…they are supposed to monitor these activities [mining] and make sure that the right thing is done but what do we see,” he complained.

According to the news story the Regional Minister's criticism comes a day after it was reported by Joy News that several pits dug by illegal miners endangering the lives of some 235 students of the Akropong School of the Deaf.

This kind of discussion has become even more prevalent during the last years when the alarms of improper waste management, illegal mining, and climate change have become more recurrent. To what extent are environmental problems the responsibility of institutions, individuals, as consumers and citizens?

Role and Responsibilities of Regional Ministers and MMDAs

As cited in the constitution, the President, with the approval of parliament, appoints a Regional Minister for each of the regions of Ghana and it is the duty of the Regional Ministers to represent the President in the region and be responsible for the coordination and direction of the administration in the region in concert with the Regional coordinating Council.

And with the MMDAs, the Local Government Act empowers them to enforce Ghana’s law at the grassroot level. Section 10 (3) (e) give them the locus to be responsible for the development and management of human settlements and the environment in their areas of operation. It is not the EPA!

The news story reported that “some chiefs and individuals are still giving out land concessions to foreigners to carry out this illegal act”. Are the chiefs not to be blamed? Are the chiefs not part of the Regional Coordinating Council in which the Minister is the chairman?

The irony of an eluded applause

Dr. D. Dartey a columnist of the Weekly Spectator in an Article date 22nd February 2014 and headlined “The story of ‘Lavender Hill’: Will the EPA win over AMA? Expressed dismay on certain landmark news stories break but hardly make it into the national news.

In Dartey’s column she recounted how The Environmental Protection Agency filed a law suit against the AMA with a restraining order to stop dumping raw untreated liquid waste into the sea.

This week—on February 12th, the efforts of the EPA bore real fruits. In a ruling, Mrs. Catherine De Souza ordered the AMA to comply with the EPA’s order and “should refrain from dumping raw liquid sewerage on the Korle-Gonno Beach [popularly called Lavender Hill], Accra and to comply with the enforcement notice issued by the Environmental Protection Agency……..within seven [7] days from today.”

However this landmark ruling did not make it into the national news.

Mandate of EPA

The EPA has as part of its objectives, to oversee, coordinate and regulate all issues regarding the environment in Ghana and the mission is therefore to co-mange, protect and enhance Ghana’s environment…the Agency co-manages that is the catch! It co-manages with everybody.

So much depends on so little

So much depend on so little and the Minister is not really tackling the root causes. However, he has directed all small scale miners to show their mining licenses. “I want to issue a [one week] moratorium for any small scale mining group with genuine mining lease to submit their documents to the Regional Security Council”, he said. A bit too late isn’t?

We are detached from reality

The job of environmental protection is to outline our moral obligation in the face of such concerns. Two fundamental questions that arise and as a people must address are: what duties do we have as citizens of Ghana with respect to environment, and why? And this brings us to the subject responsibility, backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility.

Whilst most of us would like to think we are not part of the problem and also the solution, the fact remains that if you till the land, eat, throw away or burn garbage, litter, use the toilet, take a bath/shower honk/toot the horn and tune on your radio, drive or take a car, use an insecticide you contribute to one form of pollution and global warming.

With the knowledge we have today about the causes of environmental problems and the fact that citizens in this country are well informed about their own role in contributing to the problems, individuals appear to have some responsibility. People choose to behave in ways that contribute to the problems or to their solutions.

Hence, as individuals we are taken to be morally responsible for environmental problems.

 

The writer is the Chief Programme Officer in charge of Public Affairs and Gender and Climate Change at the Environmental Protection Agency:

E-mail: angelina.mensah@epa.gov.gh