Lindsay Dentlinger
5 April 2005
Windhoek — THE Windhoek City Council is to conduct a full environmental audit at the Ramatex Textile Factory, which has been at the centre of a long-running water pollution controversy.
At its last meeting, the council decided to hire independent consultants to conduct environmental audits of all major projects (about 33) in the city since 2000.
These include some of the city's other large developments such as the Heroes Acre National Cemetery and the expansion of Robert Mugabe Avenue and Sam Nujoma Drive.
Projects that have deviated from their EIA will be subject to corrective measures.
Ever since Namibia opened its doors to the Ramatex invest- ment, environmental watchdogs, as well as a number of residents, have raised concerns about what is one of the most environmentally threatening industries in the world.
An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for Ramatex was only submitted to the council in April 2002, long after construction of the factory had been completed and operations had started.
Further fuelling suspicion about whether the water recycling and disposal systems in particular are up to scratch, has been Government and the Municipality's reluctance to make the document public.
Most major projects invite public input and make their EIAs open to public scrutiny.
The Ramatex EIA submitted to the City is believed not to be a report specific to the factory in Windhoek, but rather a preliminary assessment that paints only a broad outline of the industry processes in general.
According to a municipal document, the Ramatex EIA was done by a Malaysian concern, Perunding UEP.
The cost of the EIA is unknown.
After being presented with a list of all projects that submitted EIAs and Environmental Management Plans (EMP) to the City, the council agreed that these will be audited in terms of the political, economical, technological, social and cultural dimensions in which they were conducted.
A list of 33 projects was presented to the council for which EIAs were either funded by the City - mostly for water projects, the development of residential areas and road works - or subcontracted or privately initiated.
One councillor expressed concern to The Namibian that there was no listing of an EIA for the multi-million-dollar new State House being built on more than 40 hectares of land in the Auasblick area.
It could not be immediately established whether an EIA was commissioned for the State House project.
In accordance with the council decision, consultants will also audit the storage facilities of diesel and furnace oil at the Ramatex Textile Factory, for which a separate EIA was submitted to the City in March 2003.
As part of a bid to contain the pollution of the city's water sources by the factory, the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry hired consultants late last year to propose improvements to the factory's recycling process.
Improvements to the recycling plant, which were expected to start in January already, have yet to get off the ground.
The cost is said to be in the region of N$30 million.
Deputy Director of Water Environment Stef de Wet told The Namibian on Friday that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Development and Parastatals is expected to make a submission to Cabinet within the next two weeks on how the financial aspect of the construction is to be handled.
According to the Windhoek City Council decision, the environmental reviews will focus on whether the project contributes to or counteracts sustainable development, and its environmental performance.
The audit will also provide evidence of an organisation's environmental practices.
The City Council has agreed that the audits will be put out on tender.
However, the environmental consultants who carried out the EIA for a particular project will not be allowed to audit the same project.
With the exception of the EIA for the Ramatex Textile Factory, all the EIAs to be audited were carried out by local environmental consultants.
Depending on the magnitude of the project, it is estimated that a single audit for a large project may take at least one month, while smaller ones, such as those of water pipelines, may only take five working days.
The City will budget at least N$766 800 during the 2005-06 financial year for the audits.
Other projects listed for audit include the development plan and feasibility study for the Otjomuise extension, the disposal of tannery effluent at the Namibia Tannery, a groundwater vulnerability study of the Windhoek Aquifer and a number of cell phone towers.
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