EcoLur
The Government and deputies have put the Environmental Inspection, which performs its obligations rather leniently, in tighter frames. Now the inspections for large business entities turn into a complete farce. At the final press conference of the year, Nature Protection Minister Aram Harutyunyan commented on the situation in this way, “The main principle is not to disturb the business entities without reasonable excuses…Especially when RA Law “On Self-Control of Environmental Control” was adopted (when companies themselves have to publish their own data), we wouldn’t like to disturb them without any grounds. And the questions is to be able to solve environmental problems without disturbing them not having any reasonable excuses…The law imposes certain limits on us, for example, the examinations can’t be carried out more frequently than once a year… If other bodies conduct examinations, environmental examinations are not permitted…”
A question arises what the environmental inspection is needed for? To what extent the information obtained due to self-control and published on the company websites is reliable? How to reveal risks, if examinations are carried out only after the official order by Nature Protection Minister? It should also be noted that the selective nature of inspections bears high corruption risks, while our government is so fond of speaking about the fight against them.
January 15, 2013 at 11:40