Geoffrey Wahungu is the director general of the National Environment Management Authority. He appeared on the acclaimed KissTV primetime news JSO @ 7 hosted by anchor John Sibi Okumu. Here is the transcribed interview by reporter Jefferson Nuguti.

What were you before you became the director of the National Environment Management Authority last year in April?

I was in the founding dean of school of Environment and National Resources in Karatina which is a constituent college of the University of Nairobi. I will read your mandate to you, "Government established NEMA in 2002 as a parastatal and set its mandate is to exercise the general supervision view of all matters related to the environment".

What does it mean in reality?

This means in reality that Nema is a supreme body on all matters that are related to environment, we work with other lead agencies that are directly involved in the sustainability of the environment. For example we have the Kenya Wildlife service which is for conservancy of wildlife and Kenya Forest Service for the forests. Hence we have a lot of lead agencies who implement our policies and then we supervise and co-ordinate them.

You are saying that your work is to act as a watch dog, to suggest for your lead organisations what to do and to exercise the general supervision view but you have no hand in implementation?

In a way you are right but our task is to follow up on the implementation. Our main work is to make sure that the environment is clean. If your read Article 42 of our new Constitution it states that a clean environment is very essential to everyone it is a basic right for everyone in the country.

You mentioned that you are the watch dog and I tell you Kenya is a huge country and hence your mandate which you yourself has just explained is too wide for you to manage it, how do you do it?

Our tasks are to co-ordinate and supervise and we are in all the 47 counties. We have spread our influence all over the country; we devolved ahead of most of our agencies so we are able to co-ordinate and supervise the implementation. What we try is to make our partners work without us watching over them all the time. We also try as much as possible to have a good relationship with our agencies because they are the ones that implement it.

You are the ones entitled to allow people to build hotels in our major national parks like Maasai Mara and Amboseli. You gave them the right which is very wrong since this is the home of our wildlife animals like the lions? Why or is it because of corruption?

Yes we are but we have now various tools to use before such a decision is reached. For example we have a management plan that will help us to manage this problem and I can say that we are going to have control over all this. We have a moratorium in most of the areas which you are talking about; we have a new moratorium in Amboseli that we put up in February. We have a moratorium that we are revising on Maasai Mara and a moratorium is good since we can freeze all development as we wait for the management plans to come into place. This will allow us allocate where someone can build his hotel separate from where the wildlife inhabit, because they are a huge part of our tourist attraction.

There are massive highways being built on our national parks. Why couldn't Nema put up these roads somewhere else?l

We have a tool on sustainable development called the Environment Conservation tool. We have conservation roads everywhere even in our national parks. What we need is to co-exist between the two. We have conditions for those who want to build the roads across the national parks, it involves the designing of the road, alternative routing if that exists and then we license it if the person agrees to those conditions. Those rules are very clear but those who disobey them; we let the law handle them. Another issue is that Nema is responsible for the building of the electricity lines that pass through various areas like Laikipia going through to join Lake Turkana.

Through this our ecosystem is destroyed and a great opportunity to save ecosystem will be destroyed or is it bribery taking a role there again?

Both the Kenya Transmission Electricity company and we as Nema are both government organisations and hence bribes are not taken since no one has private interest over this. We are talking about the conservation of roads and now about electricity which are very essential in taking tourism to the next level.

There is a racket of noise coming out from bars and restaurants which are around the residential areas, most of the residents complain about this matter but your organisation does nothing to end this crisis but the most worrying thing is that these bars and restaurants are licensed and permitted to carry on with their businesses, as Nema what are you doing to stop it?

Let me say this, we have deployed our officers from Nema out there. They are on the ground and their main task is to monitor these incidences and then report to us and again we have those establishments licensed to make noise and those that are not. I'm glad that you talked about your officers that you have deployed.

How can people differentiate between the Nema officers or the imposters who are out there and extort money from citizens?

Our officers have badges which we give them for easily identification. We also gave out our hotlines, you can see them everywhere even in the public service vehicles one can easily call if he needs to. If anyone comes out there and says that he is from Nema let him show you his badge and you can call the office to confirm that. I also ask the residents to adhere to their license conditions or to regulate the noise because it is for their benefit.

Nema allows people to build houses next to river banks which are a source of water for hundreds and thousands of people who live in Nairobi. This leads to water pollution, why can't you stop this since it is your obligation to do so?

Get me clear here, Nema has never destroyed any house in this country, there is do's and don'ts before you put up a structure. Even if you go to the city council for your building structure to be approved there are some conditions which are there and hence the law must be followed. If they refuse to follow those rules that is when we go to court, and going to court is a long process and takes time. Hence you find those people who are building their houses they continue doing so until the court gives us an order to destroy it. Most of those people who build those houses are educated and they know very well that it is unlawful to build them there. We have regulations and we do awareness creation to the public

informing that that is an illegal place to build but most of them are stubborn, they neglect our order and continue building their houses. Right now we have an environment and land court; this is going to bring more problems to those who build houses in water catchment areas.

As a NEMA boss, you have already finished one year in the office and you are remaining with three years before your contract expires and it might be renewed. What can we expect from you in that time before your first term in office expires?

In my three years in office I have a lot of issues which I want to tackle. These include seeing that the profile of Nema as a parastatal organisation has been raised up so that everyone knows about this it. I will also make sure that they achieve more and guiding vision 2030 will be my major role as the Nema boss. I will make sure that the public is more aware of the environment. It's their mandate to know the whole environment since it surrounds them, they are entitled to that clean environment according to our new constitution and that is their duty. I will use my term also to sensitise the common citizens of our beloved country to understand their role in building a sustainable environment. The other thing I will spearhead towards making environment suitability mainstreamed in development.