By Karen Bong
KUCHING, May 15: The Sarawak government is amending the Natural Resources and Environment Ordinance [Cap. 84 (1958 Edition)] to add provisions that will grant the Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB) comprehensive environmental autonomy from the Federal government.
Minister of Natural Resources and Urban Development Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan stated that the transfer of environmental autonomy under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) will be carried out in stages.
“In the first stage, the Sarawak government aims to assume administrative authority over Scheduled Wastes starting in 2025, followed by the management of industrial effluent, air quality control, and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in the next phase,” he announced during his ministerial winding-up speech in the august house today.
In order to empower the implementation of the transfer of autonomy on environment under MA63, Awang Tengah, who is also Deputy Premier, elaborated that one implementation framework has been prepared and certified by the NREB Board on Aug 2, 2023.
The framework which is under the supervision of this Ministry consists of a steering committee, technical committee and four working committees with each responsible for legal, human resources, system development and infrastructure matters.
“The Sarawak government has also approved the restructuring of the organisation and human resource requirements to ensure sufficient and competent workforce.
“NREB officers are also exposed to the monitoring and enforcement activities of the Environmental Quality Act, 1974 and the regulations under it such as the Environmental Quality (Scheduled Waste) Regulations, 2005.
“If there is a need to borrow or absorption of manpower from DOE (Department of Environment) Sarawak to NREB, it will be discussed and examined together with the Malaysian Public Service Department and DOE Malaysia prior to implementation,” he said.
Furthermore, Awang Tengah mentioned that NREB is also developing the Sarawak Environmental Information System (EnvISS), which is a scheduled waste management system equivalent to that used by the DOE such as the Electronic Scheduled Waste Information System (eSWIS), Mypremis and Electronic Quality of Nature Around (eKAS). — DayakDaily
