Skopje, 4 November 2021 (MIA) – Participants in the public debate on environmental conditions and waste management, organized by the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption (SCPC), concluded on Thursday that impunity and failure to implement legislation are the key issues in environmental protection. SCPC head Biljana Ivanovska in her opening address discussed fight against corruption in the environment sector. “An acute issue in this sector is improper implementation of the Law on Waste Management. The SCPC has found that municipal public enterprises aren’t managing waste efficiently,” Ivanovska noted. She stressed the importance of support for the national strategy, which aims to improve lives and free society from the burdens of corruption. Minister of Environment and Physical Planning, Naser Nuredini, said during the debate that although the waste sector is a vulnerable and complicated system, efforts have been made in recent years to adopt legislation that puts in place much stricter rules and limits illegal activities. “In that regard, new waste management legislation introduces stricter rules for monitoring waste transport, steeper fines and measures for inspection of waste management authorities, as well as waste producers,” the Minister said, adding that new legislation is set to improve inspection. Sreten Stojkovski, acting director of the State Environment Inspectorate, underlined that although the Law on Waste Management is the first to be harmonized with European environmental legislation, North Macedonia is still lacking an appropriate system for managing all types of waste. SCPC member Vladimir Georgiev stressed that environmental pollution can be considered a hybrid threat. According to him, this is a result of the fact that different elements are merging into a much larger threat. “If environmental pollution is related to corruption, than it’s considered a hybrid threat, as corruption is also related to organized crime, violation of human rights and rule of law, so we have serious cause for concern,” Georgiev said. According to him, the problem doesn’t lie in lack of awareness over environmental protection, but much deeper issues, such as corruption and lack of consideration for one of the basic human rights – the right to clean environment. Multiple experts, reporters, representatives of public enterprises and institutions took part in Thursday’s debate. The SCPC is set to submit the conclusions of the discussion to the relevant authorities.