Last night we told you all about the Environmental Compliance Plan for the Stake Bank/North Drowned Caye Causeway that's finally been found at the Ministry of Sustainable Development.
The Chief Environmental Officer Martin Alegria said it had been lost in the shuffle because they are moving into a new office and it got misplaced in the packing up.
But, since he has finally exposed this document so long shrouded in mystery and speculation - it has generated a lot of high level blowback from former government officials. Jules Vasquez tried to make sense of it all today:
This was the Big Reveal - ending weeks of speculation:
Martin Alegria, Chief Environmental Officer
"These are all the ECP's for the interest that you have since 2007."
Jules Vasquez
"No one I spoke to in the cabinet knows about the approval, so I'm asking, just plainly, who signed it and on what basis specifically and was there Cabinet approval, was there new science, did the members of NEAc approve it...?
Martin Alegria
"I don't know about Cabinet - we haven't been, we weren't privy for Cabinet decisions back then."
But his former Minister Omar Figueroa said in a statement, quote,
"I personally informed the Chief Environmental Officer that Cabinet had issued a clear directive regarding this. No decision could be made without first conducting meaningful public consultations, and without the final approval of the then Cabinet."
Jules Vasquez
"You had the cabinet saying no fresh consultations, no causeway. You didn't get that memo?"
Martin Alegria
"What discussions are held at the Cabinet or the Cabinet subcommittee, I'm not privy to that, I'm sorry."
To that, the former Minister Of State in the Ministry of Investment, Tracey Panton put up a post last night saying
"According to the Chief Environmental Officer the approval of ECP for the StakeBank Project was signed by himself on the instructions of NEAC without the consideration of Cabinet. I have never heard such crap in my life."
For his part Figueroa continues, incredulously,
"It is beyond amazing that such a major ECP could remain top secret for over two years. Minutes of the NEAC meeting where approval was authorized should be made available immediately."
And, we did ask about that - but let's just say the answer was not encouraging:
Jules Vasquez
"Will you share the minutes the minutes of that 2019 meeting with us and will you share the compliance plan, I saw you flashed it, but we need a copy of it. You could email it."
Martin Alegria
"Sure, I'll try to scan it, the entire document and ask the CEO to give it to you all, the ECP."
Jules Vasquez
"You dont have to ask him, its his job. Its not for you all, its for us."
Martin Alegria
"Its public...(laughs)...yeah."
Jules Vasquez
"We want the ECP and the minutes."
Martin Alegria
"I will give you the ECP and the letter of clearance, I have it right here with me. I have to scan it, but I'll try to do it."
Jules Vasquez
"If you said NEAC approved it. I know members of NEAC who were there in 2019 who say that it never came to NEAC. That never came to NEAC in 2019. We need to have the minutes, these are matter of public records."
Let's just say our inbox is still empty - but peering through the grain and pixilation at this screenshot from yesterday's reveal we can see the ECP he is holding up is dated August 2019. But we are reliably informed by one former member of NEAC that it, quote, "did not meet for almost a year... April 2019 to March 2020." End quote, And we know - from custom - that ECP's are usually issued a month after NEAC meets - August would put this one outside that window.
But, though we pressed him - Alegria didn't discuss that 2019 one much - he says it's really no big deal since an ECP can last a mighty long time - and the approval he cited for this one goes back to 2013:
Martin Alegria
"ECP's are for the life of a project - if it doesn't start and properly justified then there's no need to sign any new ECP, you could continue with that ECP."
