Letter: Letters : Conflict of interest

From Name and address not supplied

I must support the Israeli greens in their contention that there is a
conflict of interest in the combined agriculture and environment portfolios of
their new government (This Week, 14 September, p 6).

As the former chief director of the Directorate of Environmental Affairs and
Conservation, within the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Affairs of
the North West Province of South Africa, after the new government came to power,
I, too, experienced a conflict of interest.

During the first few years of the government’s existence we were given the
job of researching the formation of a new directorate to cater for the needs of
previously neglected environmental concerns in the province. Our research showed
clearly that if the interests of the nation were to be best served in protecting
the environment and maintaining or enhancing people’s quality of life, the new
directorate should be free of interference from other governmental interests. We
recommended that the directorate should be a separate body reporting to the
provincial (or national) head in the form of a monitoring “watchdog”
organisation.

My experience with the combined Department of Agriculture and Environmental
Affairs was that the environmental function always played second fiddle. Because
agriculture was seen to be a national priority, its needs and policies overrode
those of the fledgling Directorate of Environmental Affairs, to the point where
three years later it is still struggling to get government funding to establish
the most basic monitoring, evaluating and protection capacity. A similar
situation exists at the national level.

I do, however, also agree that the manner in which the greens operated within
the Israeli Department of Environment, would not be in everyone’s best interests.
Government has a role to play in setting macro policy and strategy. It should
maintain an open and accommodating perspective on inputs from nongovernmental
organisations and the private sector—but ultimately it has to make the
decisions on an informed basis, and be accountable for its actions. It is not
the role of the greens to make the ultimate decisions.