Date: 16/04/2010
Source: The Democratic Alliance
Title: DA: Lovemore: Speech by DA Member of Parliament on Water and Environmental Affairs budget vote

Chairperson, Honourable Minister, Deputy Minister and Members

Air quality management and waste management are not afforded a sufficient degree of priority by government.

The National Air Quality Officer, Mr Peter Lukey, is a valuable asset to the Department. However, we are not convinced that Mr Lukey is adequately supported by the strategic prioritisation accorded his portfolio, or by commitment at other levels of government.

The 2004 State of the Environment report explains the real need for air quality management with particular reference to poor households burning fossil fuels: "The total direct health costs due to respiratory conditions related to fuel-burning emissions were estimated to be around R3.5 billion in 2002... Exposure to fuel-combustion-related pollutant concentrations was estimated to be associated with some 300 premature deaths."

The DA's commitment to environmental protection is founded on its commitment to creating opportunity for all. The ability of the poor and the immuno-compromised to pursue opportunities is clearly inhibited by exposure to substandard air quality. South Africa cannot afford delays in addressing this.

The figures in the Department's strategic plan do not indicate solutions being close at hand.

The 2009 projection of 23 municipalities suffering from sub-standard air quality by this year has now almost doubled to 43.

Last year's target of 17 municipalities suffering sub-par air quality by 2013/14 has now increased to 37.

2019/20 is the target date for all municipalities to boast acceptable air quality.

Progress is dangerously slow. However, Mr Lukey can only achieve progress with the cooperation of provinces and municipalities. Air Quality Management Plans are required of both these spheres of government. At the end of 2009, only 3 provinces - the Western Cape, Gauteng and North West - and only 33 municipalities had plans in place or under development.

The poor and the sick deserve the commitment of all spheres of government. It is your task, Minister, to execute the overarching control function to ensure that South Africans breathe clean air. People in places like the Durban south basin, Saldanha Bay, Secunda, Sasolburg and Nelson Mandela Bay are crying out for the Air Quality Act to be fully enforced.
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The concerning lack of planning is evident also in the field of waste management, and particularly hazardous and health care risk waste management.

Your department's draft National Waste Management Strategy of March 2010, states : "In terms of the treatment and disposal of hazardous waste and Health Care Risk Waste there is an urgent need for additional treatment capacity to be developed ....Most provinces have no hazardous waste facilities, and where a proven need for these facilities exists, measures to address this must be included in provincial Integrated Waste Management Plans."

The National Waste Act of 2008 requires every province and municipality to develop an integrated waste management plan.

Minister, your reply to a 2009 DA question stated that "...The Gauteng, North West and Western Cape Provinces have developed hazardous waste management plans. The other 6 provinces have not developed the abovementioned plans."

You went further : "No action was required to be taken to ensure that Provinces develop hazardous waste management plans as there was no legal requirement ...The ...Waste Act 2008 requires the provincial departments to develop integrated waste management plans which can incorporate hazardous waste should the provinces elect to do so. The hazardous waste management plans developed by the three provinces have not been submitted to the Department and have not been assessed by the Department as there is no requirement to do so."

Minister, the Waste Act indeed requires provincial plans to be submitted to your office for your approval. Please - follow your own law and make sure that all spheres of government do the same.

Hazardous waste and health care risk waste is generated in every province and MUST form part of these plans.

In October 2009 the DA released a discussion document on health care risk waste entitled, "A Bloody Mess" . We noted that "South Africa generates 35% more waste than can be handled, ...the current situation could lead to a "major disaster"."

Further evidence of the dire situation was uncovered in November 2009 in Welkom in the form of the largest illegal medical waste dump ever in South Africa.
In March 2010, the DA questioned the department's actions to ensure compliance by health care risk waste service providers. Minister, you replied : "There are no specific steps taken to bring the health care risk waste service providers into compliance...The department will in the next financial year establish a task team that will focus mainly on non compliance by...service providers, and it will...develop a strategy...to bring...service providers into compliance."

The crisis already exists. We cannot wait for next year and a future strategy.

The DA proposes the urgent creation of a Health Care Waste Management Programme involving the Departments of Environmental Affairs and of Health, and the provincial health departments, to take direct responsibility for the regulation of medical waste handling. The Programme would:
• Provide for the strict enforcement of the Waste Act and its regulations, with clear, standardized guidelines;
• Ensure that provincial and local governments take responsibility for the regulations and laws that they are obliged to enforce.
• Assess trends and capacity problems from the point of generation up to the final disposal of waste; and
• Ensure that adequate treatment facilities are in place. (There are currently only 5 incinerators to deal with all of South Africa's health care risk waste.)

Chairperson, honourable Minister

The DA's vision of opportunity for all resonates in its response to environmental management.

We will continue our quest for an environment that is conducive to well-being and to the creation of opportunity