Access to Information

To comply with the public participation requirements analysed above, the project proponent is further required to give background information on the nature of the proposed project, i.e. purpose and need for the project, proposed actions, location, timing, method of operation of likely impacts, etc. This is required "in order to assist interested and affected parties to comment constructively and from an informed position during the scoping process." (NEMC, 1997b, ibid., para. 2.3.1.) The Guidelines also require the project proponent to "establish a list of interested and affected parties" as well as develop the methods of notifying them about the project proposal. They also require the consultation process to record the fears, interests and aspirations of the community so that these can be addressed in the subsequent EIA study. (ibid., para. 2.3.3.)

It is a measure of the effectiveness of these procedures and regulations that when they were used for the first time during the EIA processes for the controversial Rufiji Delta Prawn Farming Project in southern Tanzania, the level of participation and the informedness of the contributions from various stakeholders was unprecedented. Local communities, NGOs, government departments and the press were all galvanized into a debate which ultimately led to a recommendation by NEMC that the implementation of the project be stopped on socio-economic and environmental grounds. But this will be dealt with in more detail later.

The Guidelines and Procedures suffer from a serious disability, though. Ever since they were prepared and adopted by NEMC, which recommended that they be adopted by the Government in order to give them legislative 'teeth', they have not been passed by the Government as subsidiary legislation. Their effectiveness has, therefore, depended solely on administrative practice and the goodwill of investors who feel that NEMC's stamp of approval is important for them to secure finance for project implementation. However, this state of affairs leaves the door wide open for judicial challenge of the legality of the Guidelines and Procedures by a well informed and stubborn project developer.

It is clear from the foregoing analysis, therefore, that the EIA regime in Tanzania is not only founded on shaky legal foundations, it also has to operate in a suffocating socio-economic and political environment brought on by the convergence of factors such as an apparent unwillingness on the part of the Government of Tanzania to promulgate stringent EIA regime and the powerful corporate interests keen on investing in the exploitation of the country's natural resources with minimum attention to environmental considerations. Indeed, an examination of the emerging practice shows a growing pattern of paying lip service to the requirements for EIA while sabotaging its effectiveness as a planning tool as well as a mechanism for democratizing environmental decision-making through public participation, access to information and justice. This is a subject of the next section.