PUTRAJAYA, April 18 — The Department of Environment (DOE) has issued 60 compounds valued at RM120,000 from inspections on 404 industrial premises under Ops Gempur Raya 2023 from April 3 to 18 2023, said Environment director-general Wan Abdul Latiff Wan Jaffar.
In a statement today, he said the compounds involved various violations of the Environmental Quality Act (EQA) 1974 and the regulations under it.
Besides the compounds, DOE also issued 112 orders, seized equipment, sealed 19 premises and opened 20 investigation papers for the purpose of prosecution, he said.
Ops Gempur Raya 2023 will be implemented from April 3 to 25 across the country to prevent incidents of environmental pollution, especially water pollution, involving targeted and large-scale inspections of industrial premises to ensure that the owners of the premises comply with EQA 1974.
He said DOE also conducts air monitoring with drones from time to time in areas where pollution is to detect.
In conjunction with DOE Enforcement Day 2023, he said his department agreed to give a compound reduction of up to 50 per cent to any compound issued before April 15, 2023 and has not made any appeal.
“Compound reduction appeals can be made at any state DOE and payment must be made before May 15, 2023,” he said.
He said that DOE had carried out 18,917 enforcement inspections of industrial premises throughout last year with 9,476 enforcement actions taken while up to April 17, 2023, 5,488 industrial premises had been inspected and 880 actions had been carried out.
“Based on DOE records, one of the offences that are often committed is failing to manage scheduled waste as stated in the Environmental Quality Regulations (Scheduled Waste) 2005,” he said.
He said strict action will be taken against industrial premises found to be in violation of Section 34B of the EQA 1974, which provides for a mandatory prison sentence of up to five years and a maximum fine of RM500,000.
— Bernama
