MEPA enforcement expenses

Pamela hansen queries what constitutes enforcement and direct action, and, what goes into the cost for such actions (The Sunday Times, November 27).

The course to be undertaken with regard to stop and enforcement notices and direct action is regulated by law. In brief, a stop and enforcement notice is issued against illegalities and the persons committing the illegality have 15 days to regularise their position.

The law envisages that the execution of an enforcement notice is suspended if the notice is appealed or an application to sanction the illegality is submitted within the 15-day period. The notice will be withdrawn if the illegality is removed by the owner.

If an application to sanction is submitted, the process must be followed according to the law which allows for a decision to be submitted for reconsideration, the filing of an appeal and further judiciary action in the courts of law.

This may indeed be a lengthy process. Moreover, applications to sanction are evaluated according to established policy. In this way, development which would have been carried out according to policy, but for which an application was not submitted, would be permitted, while development carried out against planning policies would be refused. Sanctioning is not a means to an end.

During the last financial year MEPA issued 1,077 enforcement notices on illegal development; of these 364 were issued against illegal development carried out in rural areas, 204 against illegal development carried out within urban conservation areas and 509 against illegal development carried out within the other built-up areas. These enforcement notices covered a range of illegal development of every type, nature and size.

Last year MEPA stated that direct actions were to focus more on issues that concern the environment. Under the review period October 2004 to September 2005 the priority of the direct action team was to remove illegalities that mainly concerned the environment.

In more than 30 operations the direct action team has covered a wide spectrum of illegalities starting with the demolition of illegal structures in protected areas, to scrapyards and the sealing off of various illegal sites.

A look at the approved MEPA estimates would show that in the last financial year, Lm41,605 was spent in ensuring compliance with stop and enforcement orders. For example, to stop a perpetrator from breaching the enforcement notice, as happened in the case of Splash and Fun, MEPA has to pay for additional cost of services to the police and other entities to ensure adherence to the law.

The figure of Lm250 per hour for a direct action was given out by MEPA over a year ago in a previous reply to Ms Hansen. It was indicated as the average cost which means that there would be operations which would cost Lm200 and others which would cost Lm300 an hour. Each time a direct action operation is undertaken, the costs include the contract for the use of heavy machinery, costs for transportation, costs for security and finally the human resource element.

All this excludes other additional costs. This list does not even include items such as the use of special equipment where sites are not easily accessible or where special care has to be taken to avoid causing further damage to the surrounding environment. Why the need for security? Ms Hansen is cordially invited to participate in such an action and she will see the reason why police are needed.

Suffice it to say that our staff have been fired at, attacked and, on one occasion even bitten in the course of their duties. Costs also increase with the flexible timing that is often involved in such actions, such as working at night to avoid causing traffic jams.

More on costs? How about the substantial amounts involved in the removal of hazardous waste in scrapyards? MEPA has to abide by EU directives in the analysis, transportation, storage and disposal of this waste. This runs into thousands of liri. Besides, the disposal of construction and rubble waste costs Lm56 per truck.

So the criticism that the costs are inflated certainly does not hold. If anything, it is a very conservative estimate. All expenses are accountable and audited and verified at the courts of law.