Works Ministry Issued Preliminary ESIA Approval on Lagos-Calabar Highway, Says Deputy Environment Minister Salako

The Minister of State for Environment, Iziaq Salako, on Friday, said the Federal Ministry of Works was given preliminary Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) certification for scoping and site clearing of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.

Salako, who disclosed this during an interview on ARISE News Channel, said the Federal Ministry of Works applied for the environmental and social impact assessment of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, stating that the “Ministry of Environment has done its preliminary assessment and I can confirm that we have issued a preliminary impact assessment certification for site clearance and scoping for compensation.”

He also said because it was a long road, “the issuance of the certification would be done in phases. The project can go on and we can also be doing our own bit of it.”

On which comes first between scoping, for which the ministry gave preliminary certification, and the Environmental Impact Assessment, the minister explained, “The Environmental and social Impact Assessment goes through eight stages and scoping is one of the stages of EIA. The way it goes is that the proponents submit an application and proposal, then we do an internal screening on it and on the basis of that screening we can now categorise the project.”

He said thereafter their staff moved to the site to see how to move the project forward.

When reminded that the EIA Act of 1992 had a provision that a project of the magnitude of the coastal road required an EIA, Salako said, “When laws are made, there is also usually a provision for regulations that can help make those laws effective and implementable. Besides the EIA Act itself there are also regulations that are developed from the EIA Act. For example, I have just talked about eight steps in the EIA.”

Salako said further, “The fact of the matter is that most of the time when a project of this magnitude is to take off and proponents apply, often we issue a preliminary approval because, sometimes, such preliminary approval to access funding, but there is a limitation of what you can do with the preliminary approval. The regulations supporting the Act actually allows us to give preliminary approval.”

Shown a letter purportedly signed by the Federal Controller of Works, dated April 18, 2024, that invited the public to meeting on Saturday April 20, 2024, to discuss the scoping of the road project, the minister said he could not confirm or deny its authenticity since, at his pay level, he did not sign such letter, the technical people do.

On the likelihood of potential damage being done to the environment if a comprehensive EIA was not done before that huge coastal road project began, the minister said, “The EIA process is not necessarily designed to reject projects. Oftentimes, the EIA process is to evaluate the impact and to set off mitigation factors/negative impact of the process is put into its implementation to ensure mitigation.”

He said the Environmental Impact Assessment Law was mandatory for some categories of projects, both public and private.

 “We take it very seriously; we don’t joke with it. As a matter of fact, in recent months, we have noticed a few loopholes in the existing Law and we are already approaching the Federal Executive Council to plug these loopholes.”

Bennett Oghifo

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