“Ultimately, errant companies must know there must be a price to be paid for damaging our health, the environment andeconomy,” Singapore’s Minister of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR), Vivian Balakrishnan, warned on Friday.
He was speaking at a media conference on the haze situation in Singapore and Indonesia, which is the source of the annual smog.
Dr Balakrishnan revealed that the National Environment Agency (NEA) has begun legal proceedings against five companies which it believes are among those responsible for the fires in the Indonesian island of Sumatra and Kalimantan.
This is a tougher stance which the Singapore government is now taking, even as it continues to offer its assistance to the Indonesian government to fight the fires. Indonesia, however, has not taken up the offer.
The NEA has been collecting evidence by monitoring hot spots, smoke plumes, maps, meteorological data and satellite images, to substantiate its case against the companies which it is holding responsible for the haze.
On Friday, the NEA served legal papers on Singapore-listed firm, Asia Pulp and Paper, which has an office in Singapore, to supply information on its subsidiaries in Singapore and Indonesia, as well as measures taken by its suppliers in Indonesia to put out fires in their concessions, the Straits Times reported.
Four other companies, all Indonesian ones, have also been issued Preventative Measure Notices, and ordered to take measures to extinguish fires on land which they own, and to prevent new fires from being started.
“It cannot be tolerated,” Dr Balakrishnan said. “It has caused major impact on the health, society andeconomy of our region.”