South Africa’s National Environmental Management Act (Nema) would be amended to ensure that the private sector and the parastatals had an equal footing under the law, Environmental Affairs officials said at the release of the ‘2010-11 National Environment & Compliance Report’ on Thursday.

In fact, amendments are under way to Section 34 of Nema, to enable criminal prosecutions to be brought forward against organs of State, in line with the basic principle that all individuals and entities are equal before the law.

Officials also indicated on Thursday that some of South Africa’s large industrial companies were “battling” to comply with the National Environment Management Waste Act.

The yearly report provided a national overview of environmental compliance and enforcement activities undertaken by environmental authorities across the country from April 1, 2010, to March 31, 2011.

The report indicated that Eskom has become one of the utilities guilty of a number of environmental contraventions, with noncompliant activities detected at the Kusile, Bethal and Camden facilities.

“This is extremely concerning as Eskom has well capacitated environmental personnel, which are dedicated to ensure compliance at most of its power-generating facilities,” it said.

The contraventions, the report stated, did not relate to noncompliance with existing environmental authorisations, but rather with the establishment of new infrastructure without any environmental authorisation, as well as contraventions of legislation regulating waste and environmental-impact assessments.

Many of the transgressions detected had been undertaken in sensitive ecosystems, primarily wetlands.

However, Eskom has submitted applications in terms of Section 24G of Nema to rectify noncompliances, the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) said.

An Eskom spokeperson told Engineering News Online that the utility has in the past identified a small number of activities associated with the new power station or return to service projects that were not covered by the original environmental authorisations for these projects.

"Contraventions were identified at Kusile, Bethal, and Camden. Eskom notified the department of these activities and applied for rectification of the situation in terms of Section 24G of Nema. In all cases the non-compliances have been addressed."

Deputy director-general for environmental quality and protection Ishaam Abader told Engineering News Online that to monitor every project across all sectors of the economy was difficult.

“We can’t be everywhere all the time. We rely on complaints and information from members of the public. While we strive to close the gap between inspecting, compliance and enforcement, it is also difficult to ensure compliance from every project in South Africa,” he explained.

The report stated that with regard to industrial compliance and enforcement, there is a gap of about two to three years between the initial inspection and the follow-up inspection, providing more than sufficient time for facilities to take up meaningful steps towards achieving compliance.

But, DEA director for compliance monitoring Sabelo Malaza said this approach was not achieving the desired results.

Abader also explained that many companies were “battling” with compliance with waste management because the Act was still relatively new and some companies still needed to fully understand the new legislation.

Other companies mentioned in the report included Samancor Middelburg, against which the DEA said a criminal investigation has been initiated.

Further, a precompliance notice and predirective has been issued to Samancor Middelburg and Scaw Metals during the 2011/12 financial year, and decisions on actions for other facilities will be taken during the year.

Inspection reports and enforcement strategies would be finalised and issued to ASA Metals, Columbus Stainless Steel and Assmang Machadodorp in the 2011/12 financial year.

Enforcement strategies for Chevron and Sasol Secunda will be initiated this year, while a precompliance and predirective has been issued to PetroSA.

A criminal investigation that was initiated for Sappi Enstra is currently suspended to allow for submissions to be made by the sector in relation to the performance of the Copeland reactors, and discussions will resume once decisions have been made in line with the process, Malaza said.

KEY REPORT FINDINGS

There has been a slight (0.3%) increase in the total number of environmental management inspectorates (EMIs) in the national register from 1073 in 2009/10 to 1 076 in 2010/11.

There has been an 18.2% decrease in the number of criminal dockets and admission of guilt fines (J534s) registered in the past financial year from 2 412 in 2008/9 to 2 877 in 2009/10 and 2 353 in 2010/11.

Of the total of 2 353 reported for this period, only 31.3% (738) were registered criminal dockets and 68.7%   (1 615) were J534s.

There has been a slight decrease in the number of cases handed to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) from 282 in 2009/10 to 234 in 2010/11. Out of the 234 reported in this period, only 9.4% (22) were subject to prosecution by the NPA, displaying a dramatic decrease from the 36% (101) in the 2009/10 financial year.

There has been a general decline in the number of arrests reported by EMIs with 2 614 cases reported in 2008/9, 2 384 in 2009/10 and 1 988 in 2010/11.

There were 1 026 acquittals in 2009/10, and 22 in 2010/11, with 72 convictions in the reporting period.

The total amount for admission of guilt fines issued decreased 65.45% from R2.5-million 2009/10 to about R867 000.