9 December 2003
(Ref: Working Paper, August 2001)
This brief analysis reviews the case study of Samut Prakarn and illustrates the different steps relevant to the ADB Environmental Policy.
Step 1
In March 1997, The Thai government approved to build the Samut Prakarn Wastewater Management Project on a turnkey basis. The government asked for tenders from private companies to bid for the turnkey contract and the contract was won by the NBPSKG Group of Companies.
The implications of the turnkey contract was that the that the ADB only sold the ‘concept’ of the project loan to the contractor and the contractor thus was not bound to abide by ADB policies. This becomes evident in:
Step 2
The NBPSKG Group suggested moving the project location to Klong Dan. The project site was then moved without informing the affected communities and without cabinet approval. Neither an IEE nor EIA was published for the new project site, which raises the suspicion that these assessments were actually never conducted. The project was also not revised for new environmental categorization, which would have been vital since the environmental impacts of the Wastewater Management Project at the new site will be much higher.
These procedures show that the Environmental Policy needs to include a provision that turnkey contractors will be bound by ADB policies. Step 1 and 2 also show that under Para. 22. 1, of the Environmental Policy Working Paper:
- Affected communities should have access to IEE and EIA. Para 22.1.a. needs to add a provision that such documents will be translated into the language of affected communities and be made available in the local level. In addition, IEEs and EIAs should specify the potential benefits and negative effects for affected communities. It is vital that Para. 41 of the Environmental Policy be implemented and public participation on environmental assessment occur in a two-way communication between the project proponent and the affected community. The policy should also include a provision that the loan disbursement be suspended if the Bank chooses not to publish documents related to environmental aspects of a proposed project.
- Para. 22.1.b. on public participation needs to be expanded to include public participation not only in the preparation and implementation of the projects but also in the assessing and selection of various development options. (Ref.: WCD guidelines) The ADB should obtain consent from affected communities for planned projects.
- Para 22. 1.c. In order to fulfill the provision under Para 22.1.a, the Environmental Policy needs to ensure that affected communities will be informed from the onset of project planning that they have a right to request to appeal to the ADB’s inspection function. This includes both detailed information about relevant ADB policies, including the Environmental Policy and other safeguard policies, and the complaint mechanisms (the Inspection Function and Anticorruption Unit) that affected communities can use.
Step 3
On November 23, 2000, the ADB commissioned an independent review (IR) to evaluate the viability of the Samut Prakarn case. However, the IR excluded local people from the beginning. Although the ADB released the TOR for review in mid-December of 2000 and public comments to be submitted by January 21, 2001, these comments were never made public.
On January 30, 2001 the Klong Dan villagers sent a letter to ADB President Chino, requesting that the IR process be revised from the beginning to include local people and the TOR include the input of affected communities. The villagers also requested that the ADB stop the loan disbursement until the IRC was revised.
On May 3, 2001, the IR Team held a meeting to present the preliminary findings. The team claimed that although the project would help water quality and public health for the people in the Samut Prakarn Province, it could potentially hurt the marine resources if toxic waste escaped, and therefore create major adverse social, economic, and environmental impacts to the communities in Klong Daan and Song Klong. These steps are of relevance to the Environmental Policy in the following way:
- Under Para. 46, on Monitoring and Evaluation:
Affected communities need to be included in monitoring and evaluation, which would include an Independent Review team. Again, all documents relevant to environmental monitoring and evaluation need to be consulted with affected communities and made publicly available in the local language. - Under Para. 22.2.b.on prevention of unmitigated environmental harm:
In the case of Samut Prakarn, this provision would have to be implemented in terms of concrete mitigation for the damage to the marine resources through the escape of toxics.
General Implications of the Samut Prakarn Case
- In the case of Samut Prakarn, environmental monitoring and evaluation was almost absent. The case shows that the Environmental Policy needs to make provisions for the concrete implementation of monitoring and evaluation. Para. 46. therefore needs to spell out what the "specific requirements for environmental monitoring and specific procedures for evaluation of compliance with environmental protection measures" are.
- The Samut Prakarn case demonstrated the bias and current conflict of interest regarding the task manager being responsible for the preparation, implementation, and supervision of the project. The evaluation function should be taken up by a review team separated from the project task team. This review team can be placed under the OESD with the provision that the team members should not be members of project task team. An alternative option would be to expand the Operational Evaluations Office (OEO)’s scope to also review on-going environment-related projects.
- In addition, the Samut Prakarn case demonstrates clearly the need for Environmental Guidelines in order to ensure guide the task manager and project team towards enforcement of the Environmental Policy.
- The current process of integrating approved policies into Operations Manuals is too long. The ADB needs to find a way to accelerate this process. Without OMs, approved policies are simply not implementable. We recommend that the Bank implement the provision under Appendix 8, 2 a) of the draft Policy to review the OM, OP and GP and form a working group within the ENVD in order to improve the ADB’s environmental monitoring system. The lack of these two provisions has compromised the environmental monitoring in the Samut Prakarn case.