Editorials

Parliament push to return pollution penalty welcome

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Parliament building in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG

That environmental protection has become a big and critical public policy affair across the world today is not in doubt.

This is partly because of the pains that climate change is visiting upon communities, forcing governments back to the drawing board.

It’s for this reason that Parliament’s latest push to have the Treasury bring back the environmental impact assessment levy makes sense.

Bringing the levy back is important in the fact that such action would help restore tax justice – by making those who destroy or whose actions have the potential to destroy the environment bear the economic cost.

The current situation in which the applicants are relieved of this burden and the cost (a whopping Sh800 million annually) borne by the taxpayer is unfair and unsustainable.

In fact, such action goes against international best practice that requires the polluter to pay for their actions.

Making the polluter pay also removes the burden of cost from the environment watchdog while performing its legal mandate on behalf of the people of Kenya. But we must hasten to warn that bringing back the levy should not in any form or style hurt investment. At this time, any action on this front should be a product of deep reflection and consultations, especially between the Treasury, the Cabinet and industry players as to the merits and demerits of the fee waiver.

The consultations should, for example, examine whether the Sh40 million assessment fee ceiling set for big contractors is still tenable or should be reduced to a more modest figure.

Our view is, however, that discussing this subject without interrogating the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) itself will be a wasted effort.

Nema as the regulator ought to do its work. It should convince all interested parties that these payments, whether by contractors or the taxpayers, are not going down the drain.

It must show tangible results in reducing environmental destruction to minimum levels. It is only then that such budgets would make sense to those paying and the economy.

But above all, polluters ought to pay for their activities to encourage good practice, restraint, and deterrence.