The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty is con­cerned with the in­fra­struc­tur­al works be­ing un­der­tak­en in To­ba­go with­out the req­ui­site Cer­tifi­cates of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC).

Ac­cord­ing to this press re­lease, the EMA is con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to these in­fra­struc­tur­al works. De­tails fol­low be­low...

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) notes with con­cern that sev­er­al in­fra­struc­tur­al works are be­ing un­der­tak­en in To­ba­go with­out the req­ui­site Cer­tifi­cates of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC).

The EMA re­minds all that the CEC process is a manda­to­ry re­quire­ment by law to as­sess the po­ten­tial im­pacts of pro­posed ac­tiv­i­ties on hu­man health and the en­vi­ron­ment. This as­sess­ment al­lows for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures to min­imise neg­a­tive im­pacts.

In this re­gard, Sec­tion 35 (2) of the EM Act states, "No per­son shall pro­ceed with any ac­tiv­i­ty which the Min­is­ter has des­ig­nat­ed as re­quir­ing a Cer­tifi­cate un­less such a per­son ap­plies for and re­ceives a Cer­tifi­cate from the Au­thor­i­ty". The CEC (Des­ig­nat­ed Ac­tiv­i­ties) Or­der (as amend­ed) lists 44 Des­ig­nat­ed Ac­tiv­i­ties that re­quire a CEC. This is read­i­ly avail­able on the EMA web­site www.ema.co.tt.

The EMA is con­duct­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to these in­fra­struc­tur­al works.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion on the CEC ap­pli­ca­tion process, please email: cec@ema.co.tt or via tele­phone as fol­lows: Trinidad: 226-4EMA (4362) - (North Of­fice: Ext. 12221, South Of­fice: Ext. 13253), To­ba­go: 238-6717.