One Question, Your Excellency - Ministry of Environment

4/25/2010

One Question, your Excellency!

Dear readers and partners in our faith in Lebanon,

The Lebanese Center for public information, faithful to its commitment to work incessantly to narrow the gap between the citizens and their "Dawle", has decided to start today a new mode of dialogue between the taxpayers and the Authorities.

This dialogue will take the form of some candid and direct questions that we shall address, at least once a day, to one of our thirty ministers and to the parliamentary commissions concerned on the subjects that most interest and sometimes puzzle the citizens.

We earnestly ask our ministers to answer these questions or have them answered directly on that blog or to the following email address: George@cpi-lebanon.org

We hope that this new initiative will serve in some small way to break down the barriers of incomprehension and suspicion that currently separate the taxpaying citizens from the tax collecting Authorities.

QUESTION NO.4 ADDRESSED TO HIS EXCELLENCY MR. MOHAMMED RAHAL, MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT

Your Excellency,

We publish below some extracts from the table of contents of the 2001 Lebanon State of the Environment Report (LEDO), prepared by the Ministry of Environment and the Lebanese Environment and Development Observatory for the general public. The Table of contents included seven pages and covered the following subjects related to environment:

A. POPULATION AND ECONOMIC SECTORS
1. Population
2. Agriculture
3. Industry
4. Construction
5. Transport
6. Tourism and recreation
7. Energy

B. STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL MEDIA
8. Water
9. Air
10. Biodiversity and natural heritage
11. Soils and Land

C. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
12. Legal and institutional framework
13. Land Management
14. Solid waste Management
15. Wastewater management

Your Excellency,

From that extensive coverage one can easily evaluate the extent and the depth of your responsibilities. Your Ministry is concerned with practically every aspect of the activities of our Public Administration. In fact, your Excellency, your Ministry should be regarded as one of the most important government ministries.

I am sure that you must be very busy and I would not like to waste any of your time. Allow me though to ask one single question:

“WHY THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY HAVE NOT BEEN INFORMED OF THE MEASURES THAT THE GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO TAKE TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF THE EVERGROWING 500 TONS OF MUNICIPAL WASTE DUMP IN SAIDA?

CONSIDERING THE NUMEROUS AND COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS AFFECTING LEBANON, THE SAIDA DUMP BEING ONLY ONE ASPECT, WHEN WILL THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT DRAW UP A NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL PLAN FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS?

THE PLAN SHOULD LIST ALL THE INITIATIVES NEEDED TO DEAL WITH THESE PROBLEMS, ONE BY ONE, THEIR ESTIMATED COST, AND THE SCHEDULE AND THE TIME TABLE OF THEIR PROJECTED EXECUTION.”

As I mentioned in my previous addresses to the Ministers of Energy and Hydraulic resources, Agriculture, and Education, this National Plan will serve your Ministry, your eventual successor and the citizens of this country to better monitor its implementation. It will also serve to introduce some continuity in public governance. Finally we hope that it will encourage the foreign donors and the International institutions to actively fund these projects considering Lebanon’s present limited resources.

Respectfully yours,
George Sabat