FREE DAILY EMAIL

Date : 06/04/2005
Source: Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
Title: Mabudafhasi: Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Budget Vote 2005/2006


Speech by Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Rejoice Mabudafhasi, during the National Assembly Debate Budget Vote 2005

Madam Speaker
Honourable Members
Minister
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

Madam Chair, it is with great excitement and enthusiasm that I stand before this house to deliver this year's budget speech. This year marks 50 years since the adoption of the Freedom Charter as a guiding vision for the achievement of our country's social development and economic emancipation. The Freedom Charter's vision of South Africa as a country that belongs to all who live in it, together with the commitment in our Constitution that guarantees all South Africans the right to an environment that is not harmful to our health or well-being, provides the fundamental basis for the actions that our department has taken to protect the quality of the South African environment.

Madam Chair, in taking forward this commitment to an acceptable living environment for all our people, there are some issues that we all know about, but that we do not often debate or discuss. I am sure that there are many of us in this house, and in society at large, who only notice their waste on the rare occasions that it is not collected. Our department however has a central responsibility for ensuring that there is a coherent national policy and legislative framework governing the management of our country's waste.

In the past year, further steps were taken towards entrenching our commitment to a waste management system based on the principles of ‘reduce, re-use and recycle’. In particular, we are pleased to announce that our negotiations with the glass and tyre industries are at an advanced stage and that we have facilitated agreements to promote the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste.

We will shortly be signing Memoranda of Understanding with the industries that will entrench these agreements and that will also contain measures to promote job creation, and the establishment of new small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in these sectors.

In addition, Madam Chair, we have made substantial progress in addressing issues related to the management of hazardous waste streams such as asbestos and mercury.

Regulations to ban the use of asbestos in our country will shortly be published for comment and a study on secondary asbestos pollution and its impact on affected communities will be completed during the course of this year. This will take us a long way towards addressing a problem that has led to thousands of our people experiencing great suffering and painful deaths.

Similarly, rapid progress has been made with regard to finding a solution to the cleaning up of waste mercury stored at the Thor plant at Cato Ridge in Pietermaritzburg.

Today I want to report to this house the following:

* The process of waste characterisation to determine the type of waste stored in drums in the warehouses is almost finished
* An EIA process to evaluate the preferred options is already taking place
* The costing exercise for the clean up has been completed
* The department is in consultation with the company to finalise these costs and we are positive that this process will yield positive results and the cleanup process should start in the near future. We however remain with the challenge to assist those victims who have not been compensated yet they are no longer employable to due ill health and permanent disabilities.

These developments, together with other achievements, such as the establishment of the Buyisa-e-Bag Company that will take forward a waste minimisation strategy in the plastics bag industry, will be consolidated this year through the promulgation of a National Environmental Management Waste Bill. This piece of legislation will provide an overarching framework for the management of our country's waste and will establish norms and standards for the management of both general and hazardous waste in a manner that both reduces the scale of our country's waste problem, as well as ensuring that health and safety issues are satisfactorily addressed.

Speaker, in February this year we promulgated the Air Quality Act. This was a major victory towards achieving a better quality of life for many of our communities. I am thinking here, Madam Speaker, of communities who live in our major urban areas, and especially those residing adjacent to industrial areas - in particular the communities of Boipatong, Sasolburg, Secunda, Durban South, Milnerton, Rustenburg and Witbank who for decades have been exposed to dirty air.

This year we will move into implementing the new air quality legislation and in so doing we will promulgate draft ambient air quality standards for comment, begin to review existing air quality permits, and declare the Vaal Triangle as a “priority area' for action in terms of the Act. These actions will over time result in major improvements in the air people breathe and consequently have major public health benefits.

Madam Speaker, as with waste management, most of us take for granted the fact that we can access information about our weather on a daily basis. The South African Weather Service (SAWS) is one of the statutory bodies that falls under our department. It provides a critical national service to the South African and international public.

In the past year, SAWS has taken a number of steps to further improve its services and capacity to deliver a world-class service.

Among other activities, SAWS has been running its Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) programme, which measures and monitors greenhouse gas datasets. SAWS has also rolled out a number of ozone monitoring stations in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.

In keeping with its public good obligations, SAWS plays a key role in offering early warning in the case of impending disasters. To this end, SAWS has increased its weather observation network in South Africa. The Mtata Radar launch in October 2004 improved the organisation's understanding of weather patterns in the Eastern Cape and the hard-to-predict East Coast. The project also involved the installation of five automatic weather stations in data sparse areas of the province. The project provided temporary employment and training to a number of people from the involved and surrounding rural areas. Over twelve people are now employed on a permanent basis. In addition, the SAWS has taken first steps to acquiring a lightning detection network for the country.

Madam Speaker, SAWS has contributed substantially to the protection of life and property against natural disasters, to safeguarding the environment and to enhancing the economic and social well-being of all sectors of society in areas such as food security, water resources and transport. To further enhance this capability through the re-capitalisation plan SAWS is going to expand and improve its observations network and replace its super computer to enable forecasters to produce more accurate weather forecasts.

Speaker, there are also important activities in our department that have tangible benefits for communities in rural areas. These include programmes that allow communities to benefit from their proximity to parks. In the past people were forcibly removed from their ancestral land to make way for the parks and this resulted in communities opposing park establishment. We are now reversing this situation through a program called People and Parks where we encourage community participation in park activities.

Similarly, the Kids and Parks project is a joint programme of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Education, SANParks and Pick & Pay. The programme seeks to enhance access for learners and educators to SANParks. It is planned that over 7500 learners and 300 educators will have an opportunity to experience field trips at 15 national parks over a period of three years.

Progress has also been made to link parks development to local economic development programmes and job creation. For example, within the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park key focus areas in this new financial year will be skills development in tourism as well as the establishment of a number of SMMEs in related fields.

Already, training of local labour to meet the ever-increasing demand for quality service has commenced. 60 local chefs have been trained. This will be followed by another 300 in this financial year with the establishment of 15 tourism related business ventures in the area.

On a much larger scale, our department has taken up the challenge of poverty eradication and job creation in many areas of our country through our involvement in the Expanded Public Works Programme.

I am sure it will make our Finance Minister happy to hear that all of the R370 million allocated to us for the Poverty Relief Programme in this past financial year had been spent by the end of March 2005. These funds have been allocated to 490 projects across the country.

To give just one example of these projects: The indigenous medicinal plant conservation project launched in partnership with Eskom in Barberton in 2004 has been one of our great success stories in also addressing food security through vegetable production. The project has now been awarded a contract to supply tomatoes to a jam factory. Members of the project have also been trained to extract oils from indigenous medicinal plants used for certain ailments.

Chair, once again, our department has made us proud in fulfilling South Africa's international environment and tourism obligations and partnerships for sustainable development.

South Africa is a signatory and participates actively in a number of multilateral environmental agreements, protocols and conventions. This presents our country with an opportunity to play a vital role in the global discussions around environmental and sustainable development issues.

This year, we will strive to strengthen some of these conventions including the Nairobi and Abidjan Conventions that seek to protect our coastal and marine resources. South Africa is the first country in the region to launch the West Indian Ocean Land-based activities programme in order to manage waste and combat sea pollution due to inland activities. Similarly we will intensify our efforts to support the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) environmental initiative through active participation and involvement. In particular South Africa's chairmanship of the NEPAD invasive species programme provides an opportunity for us to provide tangible leadership and support to our African compatriots.

Kha mbengakanyamushumo ya muhasho washu ri dzhiela ntha mafhungo a vhafamukadzi. Ngoho ya mafhungo ndi u ri vhafumakadzi ndi vhone vha londolaho mupo kha tshitshavha tshothe. U khwathisedza izwi, Afurika Devhula ndi munwe wa Vhadzulatshidulo kha Dzangano la Lifhasi lothe la Dziminisitasi dza Vhulangamupo. Ro no di fara mutangano wa vhafumakazdi kha shango la fhano une wa vhidzwa u Londola Mupo nga Vhafumakdzi. Wo vha mutangano muhulu we wa dzhenelelwa nga vhafumukadzi vhano fhira 400 vhabvaho kha mavundu othe ashu. Tsho ri takadzaho ndi mafulufulu e vhafumakadzi vha sumbedza musi vha tshi amba nga ndivho ya vho ya u lundolo mupo, lwe vha vhuya vha humbela uri mutangano uyo u farwe na nwaha u daho. Ri shango la u thoma u fara mutangano wa u rali fhano Afurika. Sa Mudzulatshidulo ro tea u vhona uri mutangano hoyu u farwe kha mavundu othe matanu na zwitangadzime zwa Afurika. Ri do thoma mushumo hoyu kha nwaha u tevhelaho.

Madam Speaker, in conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to thank this house for the support they have given to the department over the past decade. I would also like to thank and invite all South Africans as we enter our second Decade of Democracy to join us in pursuit of our noble goal in creating a legacy of a clean and healthy environment for the present and future generations.

I would like to sincerely thank our Minister for his leadership and vision, the chair and members of the Portfolio Committee, the former Director-General, the current Acting Director-General and the rest of the departmental and ministry staff.

  Issued by: Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
6 April 2005
Source: Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (http://www.deat.gov.za)

SPONSORED BY

Advanced