Citizen and Environment and Democracy Advocate, Simone Mangal-Joly has penned an open letter to President Irfaan Ali strongly criticising the appoint-ees to the Environmental Assess-ment Board (EAB) which she suggests renders it incapable of professionally fulfilling its mandate due to glaring conflicts of interest.
In her letter dated March 10, 2023 she referred to Guyana’s lack of an independent Environ-mental Assessment Board, while noting, “… It is disappointing that rather than address the issues of conflicts of interest with government duties, you have doubled down and appointed a board with two of three members having direct conflicts of interest with their government duties. In addition, in a step backwards, the board is now entirely lacking any members with expertise in environmental protection, and it continues to lack non-governmental representation.” In view of her reasoning, she asked, “How is this justifiable when Guyana has capable professional expertise in academia and elsewhere?”
