The Environment Authority published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette a new decision Amending Some Provisions of the Regulation Governing Environmental Permits. The original regulation was issued in August of this year, and this is the first amendment to be made to it.
The amendment makes changes the timeframe for submitting application to permit renew so that applications to renew can now only be submitted 30 days prior to the expiry of the permit. In the original regulation, such application had to submitted at least 60 days prior to the expiry of the permit.
The penalties associated with the delay in submitting such renewal applications have also been simplified. By virtue of this amendment, if the renewal application is not submitted within 10 days after the expiry of the permit, the EA will impose a fixed delay fine to be paid along with the renewal fees. The original regulation had escalating fine structure that doubled fines for every 10-day delay it the permit renewal application is not submitted within 10 days from the expiry of the permit, up to four times.
The amendment also made changes to the administrative fines annex attached to the regulation by removing the penalty for the failure to display the permit at the work site (which was punishable with a fine up to 300 Rial Omani), and setting the value of the new fixed penalty for operating with an expired permit as discussed in the previous paragraph.
The amendment also fixed a typographical reference error that was originally found in article 21(9).
This new decision comes into force today. You can read it in full in English here, and you can also read the consolidated version of the regulation on the link below: