Not less than three hundred and fifty consultants and staffers of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) have been trained in producing actionable environmental auditing reports.
NESREA staff and consultants converged in Abuja for a capacity-building workshop for NESREA-accredited consultants and staff on environmental audit reporting.
The Director-General of NESREA, Dr Innocent Barikor, who declared the one-day capacity training open, emphasised that consultants must maintain the integrity of their environmental audit reports.
Tasking the consultants to produce original reports to promote a safer environment, he said, “Going forward, the Agency will be verifying the parameters in the audit reports submitted by consultants and will also take decisive action against any consultant who engages in falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism.”
He instructed them to desist from using “copy and paste” methods for future environmental audit reports, citing past cases where consultants had submitted previous years’ reports as new work.
He argued that such practices undermine the integrity of the audit and could be dangerous to society, as the reports could be misleading where there is a need for intervention.
Dr Barikor also charged the staff of the agency to refrain from acting as consultants, thereby undermining the quality of service that should benefit the environment from the reports, as well as NESREA’s role as a regulator.
“NESREA staff must begin to take their responsibility seriously. We are regulators. Under my watch, a referee cannot take a shirt to play the game as a referee and at the same time be a player, and I am saying this, particularly to our NESREA staff, this will not continue,” he stated.
He further stated that the management of NESREA would have no option but to invoke all relevant sanctions to ensure that the auditing process is respected.
Dr Barikor noted that the new protocols being codified are measures and tools designed to help the environmental auditing process reflect the true situation of the environment, ensuring that reliable documents are produced and solutions can be proposed.
His words: “What makes this different from the old document is the new trends like climate change, circular economy, and biodiversity, amongst others. These are new issues for which NESREA is at the centre.
“We have to ensure that our laws and policies are in tandem with the global best practices. There are new agreements which have emerged from concerns for environmental best practices, and it behoves the agency to factor in how best we can handle all of this.”
Barikor told the training participants that the “sessions will provide detailed instructions on each section of the guidelines, covering methodological approaches, compliance metrics, and risk assessment tools. The alignment of our guidelines with global best practices will ensure that Nigeria’s environmental audits are credible, transparent, and impactful on a global scale.”
According to him, “NESREA staff and accredited consultants are on the frontlines of environmental compliance. You play a critical role in safeguarding Nigeria’s natural resources and public health. This training will enhance your capacity to enforce compliance, identify areas for environmental improvement, and contribute valuable insights to our ongoing environmental strategy.”
He encouraged all participants to engage deeply, ask critical questions, and apply the knowledge gathered to strengthen NESREA’s capacity to meet its regulatory goals.
“It will be important to let you know that the agency is carefully monitoring the activities of the state field offices to ensure that staff do not obstruct or interfere with the work of NESREA-accredited consultants,” Barikor said.
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