Poor countries are safe havens for polluters

Most of the environmental ministers in poor countries don’t know the ABC of environment. Because of their unawareness they support polluters without any hesitation. They are inducted by their political bosses just to please them or to fill that vacant post. Political system in such countries is yet to develop. Most of the political affairs are settled in such countries on personal grounds. After coming into power every political party doles out the portfolios by completely putting aside the rule of merit. Ministries are distributed among their most trusted comrades regardless of their educational background. Interestingly most of the legislatures in poor countries are barely educated.

Environmental ministers are inducted without merit

One of the elected legislators is also inducted as environmental minister of the federal government of a poor country. Similarly provincial ministers for environment are also appointed on the same lines. The newly inducted environment minister initially tries to make his or her ministry a money-making venture by overlooking the act of heinous crime of the polluting by the polluters. But after sometimes it dawn upon him or her (mostly him) that environment is a least cared subject in poor countries.

There is no any loophole-free mechanism to penalize the polluters. Therefore, nobody afraid to hit the environment because he/she knows that there is not law or its proper implementation to hit him/her back for tit-for-tat. In desperation environmental minister lowers down his and his department’s role to the level of the sanitary department. He engages his subordinates in activities of the cleanliness, awareness raising, tree plantation and that’s all.

Green police is also corrupt in poor countries

Industrial monitoring is one of the key roles of environmental watchdogs in any country. But in poor country environmental officials want to do industrial monitoring but they don’t have either expertise to do so or authority to take action against any polluting industry. Here also the environment minister jumps into. There is collusion of big industrialists, landlords, contractors and businessmen in poor countries who protect the interests of each other. As a result, environmental officials don’t have this much courage to take action against the industrial polluters because they are also part of that collusion.  

Collusion of bureaucrats and politicians to save polluters

Environmental irregularities go on both ways in poor countries. Environmental officials either don’t have command over their subject or they are smart enough to dupe their environmental minister over green issues. They have their own interests. Therefore, they don’t want any straight action against the polluters who are closer to them because they grease the palm of environmental authorities on regular basis. So both civil servants and politicians together make the fun of environment in poor countries.

People are worst victims of pollution

As a result people of such countries are spending environmentally worst life. More than half of them have no sanitation facilities. Majority of them (in millions) don’t have access to clean water. Half of the deaths are occurred because of the environmental pollution. Industries not only emit smoke beyond limits but work in residential areas without any problem. Civic agencies don’t dispose of entire solid waste and more than half of it litter around. Industrial effluent and civic waste water directly fall into water bodies including sea and they are still planning to control this mess. We can say poor countries are safe havens for polluters.

Communities are unaware

So the main problem is not communities of poor countries. They are the victims of environmental mismanagement and suffering from numerous diseases. They are even not given environmental awareness to play their possible role for the mitigation of the environmental pollution.

Green bosses have grey background

On the other hand green bosses having grey background are not only keeping mum over the nasty acts of polluters including powerful industrialists and transporters but also abetting in this crime by taking bribe from them. They unabashedly introduce themselves as environmental ministers but actually they are the abettors of polluters. How can poor countries make progress when their own rulers are not ready to do so?