GEORGE TOWN: More than half of the active development projects in Penang have been found failing to comply with environmental impact assessment (EIA) reports under the Environmental Quality Order 2015.
Penang Environment Department (DOE) director Sharifah Zakiah Syed Sahab said the projects had significant impacts, including a quarry under construction.
"So far this year, we have inspected 85 premises subject to EIA and found 54 of them not complying and violating stipulated restrictions on air and water quality control as well as scheduled waste disposal.
"Of these, 23 compound notices were issued and seven taken to court," she said after officiating the EIA Role In Sustainable Development seminar at a hotel here on Wednesday (Oct 26).
On another matter, she said that although the department conducted 1,265 inspections on premises this year, lack of manpower had hampered their efforts to reach out to the total of 8,492 to be visited.
"Due to a limited workforce of only 60 technical staff, we were only able to inspect about 15% of the total premises.
"As compliance is still low, we cannot depend on self regulation, and more personnel are needed to process applications, cater to complaints and keep up with routine enforcement as the number of projects keeps growing.
"Nevertheless, we found 743 (58%) of them followed environmental regulations and 522 (42%) of them did not.
"Compound notices were issued to 426 of them and 48 were taken to court," she said.
Sharifah said to date, the department has collected RM852,000 worth of compounds.
