Environment Committee
Recent modifications to the Environment Law
AmCham’s Environment Committee held a meeting with Yasser Sherif, general manager of Environics, to discuss: “Recent modifications of the executive regulations for Environment Law 4/1994.”
Law 4/1994 sets the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) at the center of Egypt’s environmental management system. Its executive regulations were issued in 1995, but modified in November 2005 according to Ministerial Decree 1741/2005.
Sherif, a private sector consultant on the law, outlined the modifications.
He explained that the role of the EEAA has been strengthened by bolstering the environment impact assessment (EIA) process, introducing new authorities and roles for the EEAA, and by assigning EEAA laboratories to test wastewater samples – a task previously carried out at Ministry of Health laboratories. The law’s regulations have also been made more strict in many areas to account for the availability of cleaner technologies.
Sherif said the new executive regulations account for recent changes in the labor law and comply with the multilateral environmental agreements that Egypt has signed.
Two shortcomings, he noted, are in compensation and the EEAA’s role. The revised executive regulations give the EEAA the authority to indicate the value of compensation to be paid for damage to the environment. However, without a clear policy framework for setting compensation values, implementation problems are expected. Meanwhile, the modifications grant the EEAA more flexibility in setting fees for services provided to others. Sherif argued that a policy specifying the where EEAA’s role as a regulator ends and role as a service provider begins is needed. This is essential to preserve EEAA’s credibility.
Many details still need to be developed, Sherif asserted. In line with EEAA policy, it is expected that these will be developed in a participatory approach.
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CNG vehicles: Current practice and future trends in Egypt
On December 19, 2005, AmCham's Environment, Petroleum and Transport
committees hosted a joint meeting with Emad Hassan, a principal
consultant with NEXANT, and Khaled Abu Bakr, vice chairman and managing
director of Gas & Energy Co., to discuss "Compressed natural gas
(CNG) vehicles: current practice and future trends in Egypt."
Today, Hassan said, 95 CNG fueling stations service 63,135 vehicles,
mostly taxis and microbuses, in 14 governorates. Forty conversion
centers turn cars built to run on gasoline into CNG vehicles. Surveys
indicate that most owners of converted vehicles are pleased with
the results. Those who did not convert their vehicles said they
feared poorer acceleration, reduced engine life, safety concerns,
the scarcity of CNG refueling stations and cylinder weight. When
asked where they had heard of these perceived problems, most said
their mechanics had warned them against CNG.
Based on these findings, Hassan identified the main barriers to
spreading the technology as: perceived technical and performance
problems; the perceived inconvenience of refueling; the cost of
conversion; and lack of awareness.
To further the spread of CNG-enabled vehicles, Hassan recommended
lowering the import duties on CNG vehicles and the components needed
to manufacture them, and a public-awareness campaign aimed at improving
CNG vehicles' image.
Abu Bakr said that 90 octane gasoline available for £E 1/liter locally
costs an average equivalent of £E 1.64/liter abroad, whereas 80
octane gasoline costs £E 0.90/liter locally and £E 1.57 abroad,
a situation maintained by government subsidies that have grown by
352 percent in the past decade as oil prices have increased. These
subsidies place a substantial burden on the government and the economy
- a burden that could be lightened by removing technical problems
as well as refueling and conversion cost barriers.
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